PHP For Teens

PHP for
Teens
Maneesh Sethi
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To the QuadLoro 107
Acknowledgments
There are a lot of people to thank for this work. Really, to everyone who played a
part during the writing of this book, thank you so much.
First of all, I want to thank my parents, Neelam and Prab Sethi. My brother was a
big help to me with surviving this year; thanks Ramit. My sisters Nagina and
Rachi are awesome, and I love you both so much.
Thanks to Emi Smith, my acquisitions editor, Tonya Cupp, my copy editor, and
Andy Harris and Christopher McCullough, my tech editors. Everyone else at
Course PTRyou guys are great.
Lastly, my friends: Thanks a lot, you guys. I want to give special thanks to my
college roommates during the writing of this book, Nate Foorman and Arthur
Kaneko (Theo Polan too, sort of). Also, many thanks to David Weekly for his
help programming and all sorts of computer stuff.
To everyone else, and Lauren Choi: Thanks so much for your help! Keep in
touch!
About the Author

Maneesh Sethi is a student at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. As a
high-school student, he founded Standard Design, a website design company,
and Cold Vector Games, a game development team. Maneesh has authored the
international best-seller Game Programming for Teens and Web Design for Teens,
and his new book How to Succeed as a Lazy Student is in the works.
Additionally, Maneesh lectures on game programming and design at various
conferences around the country. You can learn more at www.maneeshsethi.com or
visit his blog at www.lazymotivation.com.
iii
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Chapter 1
Welcome to PHP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Installing PHP on Windows . .
Installing the Web Server .
Testing Apache . . . . . . . .
Installing PHP. . . . . . . . . .
Testing PHP . . . . . . . . . . .
Installing PHP on Macs . . . . .
Chapter 2
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2
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19
A Quick HTML Primer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

.htm or .html Extension. . . .
ASCII Format. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Common Tags . . . . . . . . . . . .
<html> Tag . . . . . . . . . . .
<head> Tag . . . . . . . . . . .
Text-Formatting Tags . . . .
Miscellaneous Useful Tags
Chapter 3
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24
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37
Building Your First PHP Program: Setting Up the HTML. . 39

HTML Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
HTML Form. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
iv
Contents
Form Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Submit Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Adding PHP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Chapter 4
Writing the PHP in Your First Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Inserting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Functions and Parameters. . .
Predefined Variables and Arrays
GET Versus POST. . . . . . . . . .
Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Predefined Variables . . . . . .
Chapter 5
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77
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93
The Style Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Why Style? . . . . .
How to Style. . . .
Capitalization.
Underscores . .
Comments . . .
Chapter 7
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Constants, Expressions, and Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Constants . . . . . . . . . . . .
Operators . . . . . . . . . . . .
Unary . . . . . . . . . . . .
Binary . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ternary . . . . . . . . . . .
Arithmetic Operators .
Comparison Operators
Logical Operators . . . .
Other Operators. . . . .
Expressions . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 6
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. 95
. 99
. 99
100
100
Program Flow: Control Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Branching Structures .
if . . . . . . . . . . . .
else . . . . . . . . . .
elseif . . . . . . . .
switch . . . . . . . .
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103
104
107
109
111
vi
Contents
Loops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
while . . . . . . . . . . . .
for . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
do . . . while . . . . . . . .
break and continue .
Chapter 8
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114
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120
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Condition
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135
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146
Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Creating an Array . . . . . . . . . . . .
array() Language Construct .
Reference Items . . . . . . . . . . .
Creating Array Elements . . . . . . .
Defining Arrays with PHP . . . . . .
Skip the Array Key Definition .
Use a Loop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Working with Arrays . . . . . . . . . .
unset() Function . . . . . . . . .
foreach Loop . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 11
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Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Designing Your Own Functions . . .
Dissecting a Function . . . . . . . . . .
Function Code . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Parameter List . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Return Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Calling a Function Depending on a
Chapter 10
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Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Making Strings . . . . . . . . .
Single-Quoted Syntax . .
Double-Quoted Syntax .
String Functions . . . . . . . .
Chapter 9
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151
152
152
153
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161
Advanced Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Advanced Elements . . .
Radio Buttons . . . .
Password Fields . . .
Hidden Fields . . . .
Using PHP and Forms .
Basic Email Commands
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167
167
170
171
171
176
Contents
Chapter 12
Cookies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Creating Cookies. . . . . . . . . .
$name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$value . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$expire . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$domain . . . . . . . . . . . . .
$secure . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Common Problems . . . . . .
Putting a Cookie in Your Site
Chapter 13
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182
182
182
182
184
184
185
185
186
Sessions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Using Sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Starting a Session . . . . . . . . .
Desiging a Form Page . . . . .
Developing a Basic PHP Page
PHP Functions for Session Data .
The Errored Pages . . . . . . . .
The Fix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Creating a Web Page Counter . .
Developing a Log-In Page . . . . .
Cookie Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chapter 14
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196
197
198
198
202
203
205
208
211
219
Working with Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Allowing File Uploads . . . . . . . . . . . . .
HTML Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
enctype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
PHP Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Loading Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Opening a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Closing a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Writing to Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Reading in Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
fread() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
file() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Renaming, Copying, and Deleting Files
copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
rename . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
unlink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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223
224
225
225
230
231
232
233
237
237
239
241
241
241
241
vii
viii
Contents
Appendix A
Function List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Appendix B
Online Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Appendix C
Whats on the CD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Introduction
If you are holding this in your hand, you probably have some knowledge about
the webeither that or someone asked you to buy this book for them. Whatever
the case, you have found a gold mine! From this book you learn the secrets to
dynamic web sites with PHP.
What is dynamic content? Making a site change based on given information
(hence the word dynamic). Perhaps you want to make a site where you can have
several members who all store their own favorite links. Well, with PHP, you can
make your site offer dynamically different links to each user, maybe based on
recommendations or previous links. PHP gives you total control.
Who This Book Is For

You probably know better than I do who this book is for, but let me tell you what
I think anyway: You are a beginning programmer, with little or no background in
PHP. You may or may not have HTML experience. You are willing to take the
time to learn PHP by following this book closely and trying to make programs of
your own.
Your experience obviously doesnt have to t this exactly for you to benet
from this book. You may or may not be a teenager; many of my bookss readers
are over 50 or under 13. The main thing is that you have a willingness to
learn.
ix
Introduction
What is the minimum knowledge you need to succeed here? You should be able
operate a computer well. If you can use your PC or Apple without any major
difculties, you will probably do ne in this book. This book is paced for a
beginner, and topics work on a PC, Mac, or Linux computer. I have included
information on how to install the software for PCs and Macs, but you can nd
Linux instructions on www.php.net.
If you ever have any problems with any of this, feel free to email me at
maneesh@maneeshsethi.com.
How This Book Is Organized

The rst few chapters introduce design and give a brief overview of the PHP
language. You get a fast review of HTML and some PHP form design discussion.
You learn about variables, constants, expressions, and operators. Then I begin
talking about more-advanced PHP items. You learn about controlling program
ow through loops and control statements, organizing with functions, and
enhancing web scripts with strings and arrays. Starting with the chapter on
cookies, you get into some more-advanced topics. You are introduced to sessions
and le handling. Finally, you get to the appendices, which lists all the functions
throughout the book, as well as external resources and what is on the CD.
All the source in this book is available on the CD. You just need to install your
server (which I show you how to do in Chapter 1) before using any of it.
Additionally, some of the gures were taken using different themes on a web
browser. Dont worry about the different themesall of the source les should
work as shown.
chapter 1
Welcome to PHP
Hey, welcome to PHP For Teens. Im really glad you picked up this book, and I
want to let you know that you are in for a great ride. PHP, while easy to learn, is
also an incredibly powerful and useful language, and this book will teach you
everything you need to know to make some seriously dynamic web sites.
So what does PHP actually mean? PHP itself stands for PHP: Hypertext
processorseriously. Seems kind of crazy, because the name itself is part of the
acronym, like it keeps going on and on forever! PHP is also a current programming language that is often used on modern web sites and development
applications. PHP is extendible, strong, and works with many external utilities.
PHP is also pretty simple to learn. It is called a high-level language, which means
that it is between human language (English) and machine code (0s and 1s).
Because of this, you can easily understand it and write it almost like normal
writing, but it is also strong enough to do some seriously complex things.
So what can you actually do with PHP? You can make the Internet an interactive
experience by creating forms that people can ll out and submit and then deal
with the data however you like. For example, a visitor can email comments to a
webmaster, or post comments on site, or join a forum. PHP really makes the
Internet more usable.
To use this book, you only need a rudimentary knowledge of how to design a
web site. You need no programming background, but if you have done any
programming before, you will understand the language much more quickly. In
1
Chapter 1
Welcome to PHP
fact, even if you have never developed a web site of any kind before, you will pick
up everything you need to know as we go along.
In this chapter, we are going to go ahead and install PHP. Installing PHP takes
two steps. First, you need to install a web server and second, you need to install
PHP as a part of the web server. Fortunately, both of these parts are free and on
the CD included in the back of this book. The specic installation steps are
different depending on whether you are installing on a Mac or a PC. Because
most readers will be using a PC, I will explain in depth how to install it on
Windows machines. Then Ill give a few hints on how to install it for Macs.
Installing PHP on Windows

Installing PHP by itself will allow you to execute PHP les. At this point you can
view them in a command-line prompt. This is rather annoying and ugly, so we
are going to take an extra step to install a web server, which lets us view PHP les
in a web browser. We need to install the web server rst. Lets go over that before
we work with PHP.
Installing the web server is a pretty easy process on Windows, because the web
server comes in one package and you just need to open and install the les. The
web server we are going to use is called Apache; it is free, common, and secure.
Whats a web server?
The web server is an important part of using PHP. A web server (also called an HTTP server) is a
process that runs on your computer and sends out web pages when a browser tries to access it.
Whenever you go to a web site (such as www.maneeshsethi.com), a web server is running on
the domain and it returns the actual page that your browser sees. In effect, you are turning your
machine into a web site by installing a web server.
Installing the Web Server

Follow these steps to install the web server:
1. Find the installation le.
The CD contains one of the les, but you can also go to www.apache.org to
nd the most current version of the le. Figure 1.1 shows you what the site
looks like. As you can see, its a pretty big site. Apache does a lot of things for
the computer.
Figure 1.1
The www.apache.org web site.
2. Click the HTTP server link at the top-left column.

The new page is shown in Figure 1.2. Here is the place you can download the
actual server. You want to look for the newest stable version. As of the time
of this writing, the newest version is 2.0.54.
3. Click the Download link.
The new page gives you several options for downloading Apache. They look
something like the following:
n UNIX Source: httpd-2.0.54.tar.gz [PGP] [MD5]
n UNIX Source: httpd-2.0.54.tar.bz2 [PGP] [MD5]
n Win32 Source: httpd-2.0.54-win32-src.zip [PGP] [MD5]
n Win32 Binary (MSI Installer): apache_2.0.54-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi
[PGP] [MD5]
n Other les
Chapter 1
Welcome to PHP
Figure 1.2
The HTTP server web section.
4. Download Win32 Binary (MSI Installer).

The other options are used if you are not using a Windows computer. You can
also install the program from the CD, located in the Programs directory. This
will not be the most updated version. Also, you can download the program
from www.maneeshsethi.com; just look for the link to PHP For Teens.
Note
Its important to note that if you upgrade to a new version of Apache, older modules (such as the
PHP module you install later) might not work. I recommend that you use the Apache install file
included on the CD with the book, because it is guaranteed to work.
5. Click the Binary option to bring up a download window.

6. Download the le and open it to bring up a window that looks like Figure 1.3.
7. Press Next until you get to the Server Information screen, which looks like
Figure 1.4.
Often this window will be completely lled in for you. If so, you can skip the
step. If not, go to Step 8.
Figure 1.3
Installing the Apache server.
Figure 1.4
The Apache configuration window.
Chapter 1
Welcome to PHP
8. Fill in some sample values (for example, somenet.com and www.somenet.com)

and enter an email address you like (doesnt matter which one).
Note that you cant create a domain just by typing it in. For the domain to
work, you must have it already registered and set up to point to your
computer.
9. Press Next and choose to run Apache as a service for all users or only for the
current user.
If you install it as a service, Apache will start as soon as the computer boots
up. You might get a warning about a rewall conict with the web server if
you have a rewall set up. In this case, I recommend you only use your server
as localhost and rewall the server completely.
10. Choose Typical Installation, then install it to your computer.
11. Let it nish.
You have installed your web server! You will notice a new program running
in your system tray (the area next to your clock on the bottom-right corner
of your screen). It should look like a green arrow in a white circle with a
feather attached. Double-click it, and a window like Figure 1.5 will pop up.
Figure 1.5
The Apache services monitor.
This is the window you use to restart your web server. You need to do this
when working with PHP.
Testing Apache
Lets test Apache and see if it works:
1. Open up your web browser.
Most Windows computers will have Internet Explorer installed, but I
recommend you download Mozilla Firefox. You can get this browser from
the CD, from www.maneeshsethi.com or, for the most updated version,
www.mozilla.com. Firefox is more compatible with web sites than Internet
Explorer.
2. Type localhost into the address bar.
Note that I did not include any .com or .net extension. If your web browser
looks like Figure 1.6, congratulations! You successfully installed your web
Figure 1.6
The successful installation page.
Chapter 1
Welcome to PHP
page. If not, enter 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost. If it still does not work, try
installing again.
If your screen does look like this, you are ready to move on to the next
stepinstalling PHP.
Installing PHP
Follow these steps to install PHP:
1. Download the newest version of PHP you can nd.
Check the CD, which has PHP 5.0.4; www.maneeshsethi.com; or (even
better) www.php.net.
2. Click the Downloads section.
You see a page that looks like Figure 1.7. Make sure your version of PHP is at
least 5.1.1; older versions are a little more difcult to set up.
3. Choose the Windows PHP zip package to go to the download page.
Figure 1.7
The PHP download page.
4. Click the link and download the le.

The le is zipped. If you have Windows XP, you can open this le by default.
If not, you may need to download WinZip.
5. Extract all the les to your computer.
For the rest of this chapter, I will assume that you extracted the les to
C:\php. Navigate to this directory after extraction, and it will look something
like the one in Figure 1.8. The next section is a little bit difcult, because you
need to edit some text les to make Apache (the web server) work nicely
with PHP.
6. Navigate to your Apache installation directory, open the /conf/ directory,
and nd httpd.conf.
C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2 is the default location. Go here and
open up the conf directory.
Figure 1.8
The C:\php directory.
10
Chapter 1
Welcome to PHP
Figure 1.9
The httpd.conf file.
7. Open httpd.conf.
You need to add a few lines to the document. Figure 1.9 shows what the
document looks like.
Caution
Be careful! Two files in the conf directory are similar: httpd.conf and httpd.default.conf.
Make sure you pick httpd.conf.
8. Scroll to the bottom of the httpd.conf le and add these lines:

LoadModule php5_module "c:/php/php5apache2.dll"
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
# configure the path to php.ini
PHPIniDir "C:/php"
If you installed PHP to a different directory than C:\php, make sure you
substitute the name of the proper directory. All right! The installation
should be complete.
Figure 1.10
A successful restart of Apache.
9. Right-click the Apache icon in the system tray and select Open Apache
Monitor; you should see the Apache services window.
10. Click the restart panel on the rightmost bar.
Hopefully, the web server restarts successfully. If it does not, go through the
previous steps, making sure that you did not make any errors. If the restart
was successful, your Apache services monitor should look like the one in
Figure 1.10.
Note that the window says The Apache2 service has restarted (meaning that
your httpd.conf le was properly formatted) and that the information bar at the
bottom of the monitor says PHP/5.0.4 (which may differ depending on your
version of PHP). If you dont see this, try shutting down Apache and restarting
the service.
Testing PHP
We are going to see if PHP is actually fully working on your machine. Remember
when you typed in localhost and that web page came up? Well, that le was
located on your computer, in the Apache installation directory.
1. Go to the Apache directory, which is at C:\Program Files\Apache Group\
Apache2 by default.
11
12
Chapter 1
Welcome to PHP
Figure 1.11
The Apache htdocs directory.
2. Open htdocs, whose contents should look a lot like Figure 1.11.
In this directory, you see a bunch of HTML les with different extensions.
Each of these les is identical to all the others, except they are translated
into different languages. Dont worry about them though; you are creating
a new le.
3. Open your favorite text editor, such as Notepad or Wordpadnot
Microsoft Word.
4. Inside the le, type this:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
Make sure you type it exactly correct, with the semicolon after the parenthesis. Using Notepad, the le should look like Figure 1.12.
Figure 1.12
The phpinfo.php file.
5. Save the le to the C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs

directory with the lename phpinfo.php.
Make sure the extension is .php, not .txt.
6. Open up your web browser, choose File > Open, and nd your PHP le in
the Apache directory.
This loads the PHP le directly. Depending on your browser, either the page
will be blank or the browser will ask you to download a le. Neither of these
is good, because you want the PHP code to actually affect the browser. This
is where using your web server comes in. Remember how you typed in
localhost to open up the default page? Well, this time you need to open up a
non-default page.
7. Go to your browser and type in localhost/phpinfo.php.
One of two pages will open: either one that looks like Figure 1.13 or one that
looks like Figure 1.14.
Does your web browser look like Figure 1.14? If it does, then congratulations:
You have successfully installed PHP. If not, go through this checklist and doublecheck all your steps:
n
Is the extension of the PHP le .php?
Did you edit the httpd.conf le to add these lines?
13
14
Chapter 1
Welcome to PHP
Figure 1.13
The incorrectly loaded phpinfo.php file.

PHPIniDir "C:/php"
n
Did you type localhost/phpinfo.php in your address bar?
Does the le exist?
Is the le in your htdocs directory?
Did you install the Apache directory correctly?
Does your Apache service monitor give a version of PHP in the status
window?
Can you access non-PHP les through your web server?
Figure 1.14
The correctly loaded phpinfo.php file.
If you cannot get the page to load, the error is most likely in one of these steps.
If PHP continues not to work, try reinstalling Apache and starting the process
all over again. If all else fails, reinstall to C:\Apache instead of C:\Program Files \
...\ Apache. The space in Program Files can sometimes cause an error. Also,
check www.php.net for ideas on how to x the installation. In addition, feel free to
email me at maneesh@maneeshsethi.com with questions.
If the page did load correctly, congrats! You have successfully installed PHP and
your Apache web server. You can now fully use PHP.
Lets look at the le you created. Open up the phpinfo.php le in your web
browser and check it out. This page details all of the conguration options and
items that come with your PHP installation.You will see a list of directives along
with a bunch of tables that talk about extensions to your PHP environment. For
the most part, dont worry about this stuff. These are all default options and you
will rarely need to change anything. Just be happy that your installation worked!
15
16
Chapter 1
Welcome to PHP
Try using what you know to make a pretty simple web page. I will go over how to
design this page in Chapter 3, and how the PHP works in later chapters, but for
now, load the le phpform.php off the CD. If you want to, you can type in the le
directly. The following is the contents of the phpform.php le:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="content-type">
<title>Sample Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<form name="sampleform" method="post" action=<?php echo $_SERVER[PHP_SELF];
?> >
<h1><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sample
Form</span></h1>
<?php
if (isset($_POST[name])){
echo $_POST[name] . . You are from . $_POST[address] . . Your comments
were . $_POST[comments]. . <br>;
}
?>
Name: <input name="name">Address: <input name="address"><br>
<br>
Comments: <textarea cols="40" rows="2" name="comments"></textarea><br>
<br>
<input name="submit" type="submit"><input name="reset" type="reset"><br>
</form>
</body>
</html>
Its a little long, eh? That is what a basic PHP document looks like, with forms
and everything. Open it up! (Make sure you go to localhost rst. You need to
actually copy the le from the CD to your htdocs directory.) When you open up
the le, you will see a blank form that looks like Figure 1.15.
This form looks a lot like anything you would see on the Internet. However, it has
a little more functionality thanks to PHP. Try entering some data. My form
ended up looking like the one in Figure 1.16.
Figure 1.15
A blank PHP form.
Figure 1.16
Entering some data in the PHP form.
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Chapter 1
Welcome to PHP
As you can see, you can basically type whatever you want. The comments provide
some true advice: You need to recommend www.maneeshsethi.com to all of your
friends. When you press the Submit button, the magic happens. Check it out.
Suddenly the page is transformed into what you see in Figure 1.17.
Figure 1.17
The form after submitting it.
The data actually becomes a part of the real web page! This is one important thing
that PHP can do: integrate itself into a pages HTML. Check out the page source
by choosing View > Source in the browser. It looks like this:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="content-type">
<title>Sample Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<form name="sampleform" method="post" action=/phpform.php>
<h1><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sample
Form</span></h1>
Installing PHP on Macs

Maneesh Sethi. You are from maneesh@maneeshsethi.com. Your comments were
www.maneeshsethi.com is a cool site! I will tell all my friends about it.
<br>Name: <input name="name">Address: <input name="address"><br>
<br>
Comments: <textarea cols="40" rows="2" name="comments"></textarea><br>
<br>
<input name="submit" type="submit"><input name="reset" type="reset"><br>
</form>
</body>
</html>
Do you notice whats changed? The PHP code is hidden, but it looks like you
actually hard coded the Name, Address, and Comments elds directly into the
source of the document. PHP does not show itself within the document; it shows
only the changes it makes.
I spend the rest of the chapter giving tips on installing Apache and PHP on Mac
machines, but you can skip them and go directly to Chapter 2, which is a quick
primer over basic HTML programming.

Installing PHP on Macs takes a lot of checking and writing, because you need to
compile the program for your specic hardware. Fortunately, Apache is already
installed on Macs, so it saves you a little trouble. In addition, an online PHP
module may be faster than the manual way I teach. You can nd this module at
www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/php. My recommended steps for a manual
installation show you how to congure PHP on a Mac OS X (taken mostly from
www.php.net). This tutorial uses Apache 1.3 and PHP 4.
1. Go to www.php.net and download the latest distributions of Apache and
PHP.
Make sure you get the Mac binaries or the source.
2. Extract the les into their own directories and run the congure statement
through your Mac terminal, as follows:
./congure - -exec-prex=/usr - -localstatedir=/var - -mandir=/usr/share/man
- -libexecdir=/System/Library/Apache/Modules - -iconsdir =
/System/Library/ Apache/Icons
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20
Chapter 1
Welcome to PHP
includedir=/System/Library/Frameworks/Apache.framework/Versions/1.3/
Headers
- -enable-shared=max - -enable-module=most - -target=apache
3. Type the following to set your compiler to do optimization:

setenv OPTIM=-O2
4. Go to the PHP source directory and congure it, substituting your version
of Apache with 1.3.12 in this document:
./congure - -prex=/usr - -sysconfdir=/etc - -localstatedir=/var
- -mandir=/usr/share/man - -with-xml - -with-apache=/src/apache_1.3.12
5. Type make and make install.

This creates a new directory in your Apache source directory, under src/
modules/phpx; x is your PHP version.
6. Recongure Apache to build in PHP.
./configure - -exec-prefix=/usr - -localstatedir=/var - -mandir=/usr/share/man
- -libexecdir=/System/Library/Apache/Modules iconsdir =
/System/Library/Apache/Icons
includedir=/System/Library/Frameworks/Apache.framework/Versions/1.3/
Headers
- -enable-shared=max - -enable-module=most - -target=apache
- -activate-module=src/modules/php4/libphp4.a
If you get an error message telling you that libmodphp4.a is outdated, go to

the src/modules/php4 directory that was created earlier in the apache folder
and run ranlib libmodphp4.a. Then go back to the Apache source directory
and run the command again.
7. Run make and make install one last time.
8. Copy and rename the php.ini-dist le to your bin directory from your
PHP directory.
This is generally done with one of the following commands:
cp php-ini.dist /usr/local/bin/php.ini
cp php-ini.dist /usr/bin/php.ini
And that should be it! A lot of steps perhaps, but it allows PHP to be installed.
Check the PHP web site, however, because you might be able to download
precongured binaries and skip these steps.
After all of this installation, make sure you check that everything is working right.
Follow the testing steps outlined in the Testing Apache and Testing PHP
sections of this chapter: Navigate to localhost, make sure Apache is working,
load phpinfo.php, and make sure PHP is up to date.
Hopefully, everything is working correctly and you are good to go. If it isnt,
check the Apache and PHP web sites for hints on how to x it. In the next
chapter, we are going to refresh your HTML knowledge. HTML works hand in
hand with PHP, so you need to know a little about it to make decent web sites.
21
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chapter 2
A Quick HTML
Primer
If you followed the steps in Chapter 1, you know how to install PHP and how to
create a new PHP le. Now you are going to learn how to do a little bit of HTML,
which produces static pages, whereas PHP allows dynamic pages. The HTML in a
web page generally remains the same unless another process, such as PHP,
changes it.
Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML, is the backbone code that goes into most
web pages that makes text and graphics appear onscreen. This language is basically
a set of conventions, followed by all browsers, that allows people to view pages so
they look exactly the same in different applications. Because HTML is a markup
language, it is a lot easier to write than programming languages such as PHP.
HTML will be used in every web page you make (unless you jump to XML), so it
is important that you have a fundamental knowledge of it before moving on. I
recommend reading the chapter even if you know HTML; itll refresh anything
you might have forgotten.
We only have one chapter to do this, so I am going to skip some parts of HTML.
If we need to use them later in the text, I will explain them then. Instead of
dealing with forms in this chapter, you will nd pages dedicated to them in
Chapter 3. Lets start with the structure of a basic HTML document.
All HTML documents have a common structure. Whenever a web browser sees
an HTML le, it knows immediately that the le is a web page and should be
displayed as such because of a few factors:
23
24
Chapter 2
A Quick HTML Primer
The .htm or .html extension
The ASCII format
The common tags
.htm or .html Extension

By default, most of the pure HTML documents have the extension .htm or .html.
However, this is not always the case. Some have .php, .xml, .shtml, .cgi, or
others. The web server (in our case, Apache, which you installed in Chapter 1)
chooses what actions to take based upon the le extension. Remember when you
added the following lines to the httpd.conf le during installation of PHP?
PHPIniDir "C:/php"
The rst line (LoadModule) tells Apache to load the instructions to deal with any
.php le, and the second line tells Apache to use PHP to handle any les with the
.php extension. Figure 2.1 shows what these lines look like within httpd.conf.
Figure 2.1
The httpd.conf file.
Common Tags
ASCII Format
If you can open up the le in a text editor and you see text, rather than gibberish,
then you have an ASCII le. ASCII les are made up only of letters, numbers, and
punctuation, rather than the binary bits used for executable les. When you
create an HTML le in a pure text editor such as Notepad, the le is always in
ASCII format. However, if you use a word processor such as Microsoft Word, the
program introduces some weird, non-ASCII information. For this reason, never
use any word processor to create HTML les.
Common Tags
Tags are a major part of creating and designing an HTML document. Every le
has several tags necessary for the page to be viewed in the web browser. Lets look
at the structure of a blank document for the purposes of seeing the HTML
structure:
What is DOCTYPE?
All browsers interpret code a little bit differently. To help programmers write code that displays
consistently in all browsers, and to create a standard way of writing code, the World Wide Web
Consortium was created.
To identify your document as conforming to these standards, you use a very scary-looking but
benign DOCTYPE declaration. It has only a few variations, and they are readily available to cut and
paste into your code---especially since you only have to use it once per document. Lets look at a
sample declaration:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
This lets the browser know that it is an HTML document: DOCTYPE html. (Yes, even though we
are going to make PHP documents, we will declare it HTML. Your server only sends HTML to the
browser after it has interpreted and taken out the PHP.)
Now for the important part: This lets the browser know that the code conforms to XHTML 1.0
Strict standards: PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN". (There are many versions.
This version makes your page look the most consistent across all browsers.)
The next part simply tells the browser where to look to find these standards: http://www.w3.org/
TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd.
If you dont declare a DOCTYPE, you are putting your code at the mercy of whatever conventions a
browser decides it should use. Write one! There is no need to write it from memory, either. To see
a full list, go to the W3C web site:
http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/04/valid-dtd-list.html#DTD
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Chapter 2
A Quick HTML Primer
<html>
<head>
<title> </title>
</head>
<body>
<p> </p>
</body>
</html>
Figure 2.2 shows what this page looks like in a browser. As of right now,
its completely blank. However, if you view the source shown in Figure 2.3, you
see that the document has some substance. This le is phpft02-01.html and it is
on the CD.
<html> Tag
The rst tag in the le is <html>, which tells the computer that the following text
is HTML code and should be displayed as any HTML document would be.
Figure 2.2
The phpft02-01.html file in a browser.
Common Tags
Figure 2.3
Viewing the source.
HTML tags follow a strict set of conventions. Each tag is surrounded by less-than
and greater-than brackets: < and >. Some tags have a beginning (opening) and
ending (closing); the opening tag is surrounded by brackets and the closing tag is
surrounded by brackets and preceded by a forward slash (/).
The tags need to be properly nested, which results in the rst tag opened being the
last tag closed. In other words, when you open one tag, and then you open
another tag within that rst tag, the second tag you opened needs to be closed
before closing the rst tag. Lets look at an example:
<html>
<head>
</head>
</html>
Notice that the rst opened tag, <html>, is also the last tag to be closed; remember
that the tags that have / before them are the closing tags. In other words, it goes
27
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Chapter 2
A Quick HTML Primer
Figure 2.4
The title section.
a, b, /b, /a. Be careful with the nesting, because done incorrectly, it can make some
weird things happen in your document.

You know what the <html> tag does, so lets move on to the next major tag. After
<html>, this is the next tag in the basic structure:
<head>
</head>
The <head> tag deals with items that arent actually shown within the document,
but are used within it. One of the most common tags is <title></title>.
Anything used in this tag is displayed at the top of the screen and in the taskbar.
Take a look at Figure 2.4 to see what the title looks like. As you can see, this
changes what the bar at the top of the screen looks like. Note that the page title is
Sample Form; the web browser added Mozilla Firefox.
Caution
Be careful about putting HTML code in your <head></head> section. The text in the header
section is not displayed on the screen. For your actual page contents, the code goes in the
<body></body> section.
Next, we come to the <body></body> tag. This is your documents major section,
because all of the text and images that appear in your web page are included here.
Figure 2.5 shows the body section of the Sample Form web page.
As you can see, the part of the web page that displays all the important information is in the body. If you look back at the structure of the web page that you
created earlier, you might notice the nal tag: <p></p>. This tag creates a new
paragraph for text.
Well, now that weve created a document and set up everything, how do we
actually make text appear? Actually, all we have to do is type it in! Take, for
example, a very basic web page that simply displays a line of text to the visitor.
Well, take the structure that you created earlier, and enter your text inside the
Common Tags
Figure 2.5
The body section.
<p></p> tags. Following is the code that would make a very simple web page. How
does this look in the actual web browser? Figure 2.6 shows you. This le is on the
CD as phpft02-02.html. You can also simply type it into your favorite text editor
and save it as an HTML le (a le with an .html extension).
<html>
<head>
<title> </title>
</head>
<body>
<p>
Hello, World!
</p>
</body>
</html>
Note
There is a difference between this HTML file and the PHP file you created in Chapter 1. Remember
how the PHP file needed to be opened through the Apache web server using localhost as your
domain name? Well, that is only because the document needed some PHP programming that was
executed by the web server. In this case, because the web page is purely static and does not
require any HTML, you can open and view the web page by just opening the file in a browser.
Make sure that the file has an .html or .htm file extension. Also, if you wish, you are allowed to
open the file through your web server using localhost, but this is not required.
29
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Chapter 2
A Quick HTML Primer
Figure 2.6
The phpft02-02.html web page.
Okay, so youve created a basic web page that shows some text. What if you want
to modify that text? For example, say you want to make the text bigger, or make it
a heading, or make it bold? Fortunately, HTML has a lot of ways to do text
modications.
<head> Tag
Lets start off with headings. A lot of times, when you want to display information on a web page, you want to break it down into easily digestible chunks.
You can do this using headings. Headings, or headers, which come in size levels,
make some text larger for emphasis. Look at Figure 2.7, which shows all the
different heading levels compared to regular body text. Note that browsers may
interpret headings differently and yours could look a little different across different browsers.
You might want to use headers to break up some text. Even this book uses
headings: See the Basic HTML header at the beginning of this chapter? That tells
Common Tags
Figure 2.7
Different headers.
you what this part of the chapter is devoted to. Check out Figures 2.8 and 2.9.
Figure 2.8 shows what text can look like when headers are not used at all: a big
load of text, which makes it actually difcult to read. Figure 2.9 shows what
headers can look like when used correctly. In this case, the header successfully
breaks up a large section of text, helping direct the visitors eye to the major
section of the page. Not too bad at all, eh? These headers really make viewing text
a lot easier. The rst gure can be viewed on the CD as phpft02-04.html and the
second gure can be viewed as phpft02-05.html.
To make a heading in HTML, you need to use the <hnumber> tag, where number is
a number between 1 and 6. <h1> is the largest and <h6> is the smallest. Using these
tags around some text will change its size and boldness.
So, if you have a basic web page, how can you change its text into a heading? Simply
add the heading tags around the text. For example, if I wanted to make Welcome
to our page! a medium-sized heading, I might do something like the following:
<h3>Welcome to our page!</h3>
31
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Chapter 2
A Quick HTML Primer
Figure 2.8
The phpft02-04.html file with no headings.
Lets put this directly into the basic page we have been building. It now looks like
this. (I also lled in the title so it isnt blank.) Figure 2.10 shows what this page
looks like.
<html>
<head>
<title>Quick Sample Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>
Hello, World!
</p>
</body>
</html>
This page now has a nicely dened heading that welcomes the visitor to the site. It
looks pretty cool, huh?
Common Tags
Figure 2.9
The phpft02-05.html file with proper headings.
Text-Formatting Tags
Okay, lets do some text editing. At some point youre going to want to change
the font or text color, as well as make some words italicized, underlined, or
bolded. HTML makes this easy. Lets rst go over the easier functions:
n
Bolding is done with <b></b>.
Italicizing is done with <i></i>.
Underlining is done with <u></u>.
Caution
It is important to note that the <b></b>, <i></i>, and <u></u> tags are considered
deprecated, or not recommended, by the HTML standard. Because HTML is moving to something
called Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), it is recommended you use CSS to do bolding, underlining,
and italicizing. The syntax for underlining in CSS is like this: <span style = "font-style:
italic"></span>. Bolding and underlining are the same, except replace italic with bold or
underline. Its an ugly syntax so I am not using it in this book, but be forewarned that you should
design any page with this syntax if you expect the page to be around for several years, because
browsers in the future may stop supporting the original tags.
33
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Chapter 2
A Quick HTML Primer
Figure 2.10
The phpft02-06.html file.
Lets put some of this into the page. Ive added a few lines to the body. The new
code is shown here. Trying to visualize what the changes will look like without
looking at Figure 2.11 might help you understand when you should use these
tags. (I removed the <head></head> section to take up a little less space.)
<html>
...
<body>
<p>
Hello, World!
</p>
<p><b>I am some bolded text</b>, <i>I am some italicized text</i>,
<u>and I am some underlined text</u>. <u><i>I am both underlined and
italicized.</i></u>
</body>
</html>
Common Tags
Figure 2.11
All right, youve edited a lot of text. Now lets change the font using the <span
style="font-family: " ></span> tag.
Font refers to many important facets of text. It refers to the face, which is the style.
Almost all the text in this book is in Times New Roman. Check out the following
however: I am Courier. This is a little different, huh? Besides face, font also refers
to the color. You might want the font to be green or red or gray. Its a heck of a lot
easier to do that on a web page than in printed material. If I wanted to show you
some color fonts in this book, you might have to pay well over $40 for it! Take
advantage of color when it is free! Lastly, font refers to the size.
Changing all of these things requires the <span></span> tag. However, because
fonts have so many aspects, you have to use something called a tag attribute. A
tag attribute helps inform the browser what part of the tag you wish to inuence;
for example, you might want to change the size and color, but not the face. An
attribute is added after the name of the tag and is dened with an equals sign: =.
35
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Chapter 2
A Quick HTML Primer
Figure 2.12
Comparing different font sizes.
Say you want to change font size. Well, you need to use the <span></span> tag
with the font-size attribute. It would end up looking something like this:
<span style="font-size: 18px">I am a line of text that is font size 18!</span>
This changes the font to point size 18. Figure 2.12 compares two different font
sizes.
The code would look something like the following:
<body>
<p>I am regular text!</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 18px;"6>I am text with a size attribute of 18!</span>
</p>
</body>
You can change the font color by using <span style="color:color;"></span>. The
color can be RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) using the proper hexadecimal code or
you can use any basic named color, such as white, red, green, blue, black, or orange.
Common Tags
Note
For a list of many common hex codes, go to http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/
reference/color_codes.
I need to change the pages background color.
You can do this using the background-color: color style attribute within the <body
style=""> tag. If you want the background to be black, you can just use <body
style="background-color: black; color: white">. Keep in mind that setting the
background color to black will cause your black text to essentially disappear. Make sure you
change the font color of your text to "color: white" or something else easily visible on black.
To change the font face, you need to use the font-face style attribute. You can
change the font face by putting the face you wish to use within quotes in the
font-face attribute. For example, writing the following would put text in
Courier, assuming that style is available on the users machine:
<span style="font-face:courier">I am in courier!</span>
Miscellaneous Useful Tags

You will probably need to go to a new line of text without actually using a new
paragraph. The <br /> tag will do this. The forward slash at the end of the tag lets
the web browser know that there is no closing tag.
If you want to insert an image, you can use the <img> function. This function,
when it uses the src attribute, will allow you to insert an image into your page. To
add image.jpg, which is located in the same directory of the HTML le, you
would do something like this:
<img src="image.jpg" />
Also, if you use the alt attribute, you can make the image bring up text whenever
the user puts his mouse over the image. Also, the alt tag refers to alternate text,
which can appear whenever the user turns off images in a browser. Make sure the
alt text describes the image. You might do something like this:
<img src="tree.jpg" alt="A picture of a tree" />
This tag does not require a closing tag. Keep in mind the only types of images you
can safely display are .bmp, .jpg, .gif, or .png.
That last type of HTML you will commonly use are links, which can help you
navigate from one page or site to another. This is done with the <a href=". . .">
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Chapter 2
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team, where the href attribute refers to the referenced items location. This
needs to be preceded with http:// if you are referencing an external site. This will
look something like the following:
</a>
<a href="http://www.somethingonanexternalsite.com">Click here to view a page on

an external site</a>
Or you may want to link to a different page on your own site:

<a href="page2.html">Click here to visit page 2</a>
In the next chapter you learn about HTML forms, which are an important part of
PHP. After that, you are actually going to start doing some real PHP.
Note
I did not go over every programming construct in this chapter. For example, I skipped tables.
Tables are very important in HTML, but not so much so in PHP. Because of this, I only teach tables
if you absolutely need to use them later on in some examples in this book.
chapter 3
Building Your First

PHP Program:
Setting Up the HTML
PHP is very common on sites that have forms. Youve seen web sites that
have forms. Theyre the parts of web pages that look like Figure 3.1. In this
chapter I show you the basics of designing a form. You will be using forms a lot
in PHP programming, so its important to know as much as you can about
them.
These guys are basic staples of Internet business: an easy way for the user to send
information back to the web site. And they arent limited to just accepting words,
either. A lot of times, a site allows you to take a quiz or something that requires
you to select from checkboxes and radio buttons, and some sites even let you
upload a le. All of these things are done through forms.
Lets take a look at what PHP can do. Just with one line of PHP, I can make the
web page turn from Figure 3.1 to Figure 3.2. Pretty cool, huh? Using PHP, I can
make it so the web page reects back what the user typed in earlier.
So how did I do this? First, I designed a basic web page. Im going to spend the
rest of this chapter giving you a quick refresher on how to build basic pages. If
you want to learn more about web design, check out my other book, Web Design
For Teens.
You can develop a web page a couple of ways: through a basic text editor (such as
Notepad) or through an HTML editor. We are going to be using a basic text
editor to write the HTML for this chapter. Most HTML editors are known as
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Chapter 3
Building Your First PHP Program: Setting Up the HTML
Figure 3.1
A sample web form.
WYSIWYG (pronounced wizzywig), which stands for What You See Is What You
Get. The editors try to show you the page how it will look on the web site. A basic,
non-WYSIWYG text editor, however, shows only the code behind the pagenot
what it looks like on the screen.
Note
You can get Nvu, which is a free WYSIWYG text editor, from this books CD or from www.
maneeshsethi.com. However, in this book you use a basic text editor.
HTML Template
The rst thing you need to do is open up a text editor. In Windows, choose
Start > Run, which is shown in Figure 3.3. Notepad opens in a new window that
looks like Figure 3.4. On a Mac, nd any text editor you have installed (such as
TextEdit) and open it.
HTML Template
Figure 3.2
A sample web form after adding PHP.
Figure 3.3
Opening up Notepad through the Start menu.
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Chapter 3
Figure 3.4
Notepad is open.
As you learned in Chapter 2, HTML is made up of tags. The complete template

for a page looks like the following. Figure 3.5 shows what it looks like after typing
it into Notepad.
<html>
<head>
<title>Insert title here</title>
</head>
<body>
Insert body here
</body>
</html>
The page title appears at the top of the browser, and the body appears in the
actual page space. Figure 3.6 shows the page as typed in the web browser.
HTML Form
Now that you have seen the HTML template, lets build an HTML form. Forms
communicate data to PHP. Use the <form></form> tag to create a form. (Crazy,
huh?) This tag surrounds all of the inputs, such as textboxes and submit buttons.
HTML Form
Figure 3.5
Inputting the web page template into Nvu.
Figure 3.6
Inputting the web-page template.
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Chapter 3
The actual <form> tag itself has several attributes, which are tag describers. Put
attributes into an HTML tag like the following:
<tagname attribute1="value1" attribute2="value2">
The important <form></form> attributes follow:

describes the way the data is transferred. I talk more about these
methods in the next chapter.
method
action explains where the data is being sent. Generally, the data is sent to a
separate PHP le, which operates on the data.
Lets dene a form, leaving the action blank and setting the method to post.
<html>
<head>
<title>A Sample Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>A Sample Form</h1>
<br />
<form action="" method="post">
</form>
</body>
</html>
You added some big text that says A Sample Form, which now looks like Figure 3.7.
Now its time to add some form elements. How about two textboxes and a text
area?
What are textboxes and text areas?
Textboxes and text areas are common HTML form elements. They allow the user to type text
directly into the form. However, both of these elements are very similar; for example, take a look
at Figure 3.1: The elements after Name and Address are textboxes, and the element after
Comments is a text area. What is the difference between these two? Textboxes only allow one
line of text, which is not enough space to write something substantial. Generally, it is used for
writing small bits of information such as names, passwords, or addresses. On the other hand, text
areas can be scaled to any size, even as big as the browser itself! They are great for comments or
stories.
Form Elements
Figure 3.7
Creating an empty form.
Form Elements
Lets make the textboxes rst. Type into Notepad an explanation of what the
textboxes actually do. This description wont affect the code, but your site visitor
uses the explanation to understand what to put in the box. For example, I typed
Name: into the Notepad document you see in Figure 3.8.
Now you do the same: To create a textbox, use the <input /> tag with a few
attributes in order to make it properly work with the page. The rst attribute is
type. Type tells the browser what kind of form element its dealing with. Because
you are using a textbox, the type is text. The second attribute you need is a name,
which is the variable that stores the textbox contents when you use PHP. Lets
create the textbox now. Look at Figure 3.8 to see what it looks like to the user.
(Remember that if a tag has a /> ending, it has no ending tag.)
This window shows all the options you need to deal with for any form eld. In
our case we want to make a textbox, so lets do that via HTML. Add a name to
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Chapter 3
Figure 3.8
Creating a textbox.
this eld; I chose fullname. If you want to give it an initial value, add the value
attribute and set it equal to the initial value.
Name: <input type="text" name="fullname" />
</form>
Why give form fields a name value?

The option to give a field name to the textbox is incredibly important: Never, ever forget to set it.
Whenever PHP tries to run any commands upon the form fields, it needs to have a way to
reference them. In this case, it uses the fields name. When you need to talk to a friend, and he is
in a crowd of other people, typically, you will call out his name; that is exactly what the code is
doing. Giving the form field a name allows the PHP program to call the form field and use its data.
I will go over this more further on in the book.
Now add the second eld. Do exactly the same: Write the text on the screen
(Address:), then create a textbox with the name value set to address. So far, so
good? The result should look a lot like Figure 3.9.
Form Elements
Figure 3.9
Adding the second textbox.
We have just created the beginning of a web page that allows the reader to add
some data. So far, she can enter her name and address, but we still need to create a
text area so she can put in some comments about the site. Lets do that now with
a text area. Text areas are not much more difcult than textboxes. However, they
do have a few more options: You can specify their width and height. Before
creating the area, use text to tell the user what the area is for, just like with the
Name and Address textboxes. To do this, just type Comments: on the next line
(by using a <br />).
To create a text area, use the <textarea></textarea> tag. Anything you type
between the opening and closing tags is the default value. Pretty simple, eh? Lets
add the options. Lets give this text area 2 rows and 40 columns. (Each column is
one character.) Use the attributes cols for columns and rows for rows. Make sure
you name the text area, such as comments. The code will create what you see in
Figure 3.10.
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Chapter 3
Figure 3.10
Adding a text area to the page.
Note
Even though we made the text area 2 40, the user can still type more. When more than the
allowed number of characters is typed, the area displays a scrolling bar on its side, just like when
your web browser lets you scroll down a page.

Address: <input type="text" name="address" /><br /> <br />
Comments: <textarea name="comments" cols="40" rows="2"></textarea>
</form>
Submit Button
So far, the user can enter plenty of information. However, you cant do anything
with it! The server uses the HTML form to pass data to another program, such as
one written in PHP, that will handle and deal with the information. It might email
Submit Button
Figure 3.11
Adding a submit button.
the comments to the sites webmaster or it might display them on the site. Either
way, you still need to create a way to actually submit that data! This is done with a
submit button. When the user nishes entering information, she can press the
submit button so the form sends the data to the PHP program to be processed.
Creating a submit button is very easy. In HTML, just use the <input /> eld with
the type set to submit. In most cases, it isnt necessary to enter a name for the
submit button because you rarely need to process it, but just to be safe, give it a
name such as submitbutton. The value attribute allows you to change the text on
the submit buttons face, so it wont say Submit Query. The code for the submit
button follows. The page now looks like Figure 3.11.
<input type="submit" name="submitbutton" />
Note
If you want to, feel free to change the submit buttons value. You can make the button say
whatever you want by default, such as Send Information or Leave a Comment. Figure 3.12 shows
what it might look like.
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Chapter 3
Figure 3.12
A different value.
Add one last, optional, thing to this form: a reset button. It allows the user to
clear everything he has typed or selected. Creating a reset button is just as easy as
creating a submit button. Use <input /> with the type set to reset. Give it a name,
such as resetbutton, and click OK. You have created a form that looks like
Figure 3.13.
<input type="reset" name="resetbutton" />
Adding PHP
We have created a full form. Only one problemif you open this web browser
and press Submit Query, nothing happens! This is where PHP comes in. Before
adding PHP, take a look at the source code for the web page we just created:
<html>
<head>
Adding PHP
Figure 3.13
The final form with a reset button.

</head>
<body>
<br />
Address: <input type="text" name="address" /><br /><br />
Comments: <textarea name="comments" cols="40" rows="2"></textarea><br /><br />
</form>
</body>
</html>
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Chapter 3
How does the form know to which page to send the data? It is dened in the
action attribute of the <form> HTML tag. Look at our <form> tag as it stands now:
<form name="sampleform" method="post">
...
</form>
We need to use an action attribute inside the <form> tag to tell the web page
where to send the data. Assigning the action attribute to be blank makes the page
send its data to itself, so the page itself can operate on it. However, this is not
useful unless the page is a PHP document. You do this in the next chapter.
chapter 4
Writing the PHP

in Your First
Program
This chapter will help you complete your rst PHP program and learn some of
the basic ideas in PHP, such as variables. Before we start, take a look back at the
HTML page we created earlier. The HTML looked like the following:
Note
From now on, we are using a valid DOCTYPE and valid header throughout our web pages. This
will get you into making all of your web pages follow the standard. Note that the pages work
without a DOCTYPE, but it is very much recommended you use them.

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p>Name: <input type="text" name="fullname" />
Address: <input type="text" name="address" /></p>
<p>Comments: <textarea name="comments" cols="40" rows="2"></textarea></p>
<p><input type="submit" name="submitbutton" />
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Chapter 4
Writing the PHP in Your First Program
<input type="reset" name="resetbutton" /></p>

</form>
</body>
</html>
If you want to make the page pass the data directly back to itself, you can
generally make it follow this template:
<form name="sampleform" method="post">
...
</form>
We just remove the action attribute, and the data from this web page is passed to
itself ! What does this mean? All the data typed into the form are stored in specic
variables. These variables can be passed to any PHP page. Some pages might just
display what the user typed, other pages might add two numbers, and so on. The
most important thing to remember is that any PHP page must have the extension
.php, not .html. Rename the page from Chapter 3 rstphpprogram.php.
If you want your form to send its data to a program called something.php, modify
the action attribute so it looks like this:
<form name = "sampleForm"
method = "post"
action = "something.php">
Unfortunately, the page doesnt do anything with the data yet because we havent
put in any code that handles it! No PHP in this case is kind of like throwing a
football over a wall and hoping someone is there to get it. Without PHP, there is
no one to retrieve or use the ball because we havent created him. With PHP, we
can design someone to be on the other side of the wall and tell him what to do
with the ball.
How do you code PHP? Well, because this is your rst experience, and because
I go over all of this in depth later in this chapter, I give just a very quick
layout here. When you insert <?php ?> tags around code, the web server
immediately recognizes that it is PHP info and starts running the PHP program.
After the code has run, the web server puts together the PHP and the HTML into
one document that becomes the nal web site that the user sees. So lets add these
brackets.
Add these PHP tags in directly after the <h1> section that says Sample Form. Now
our page looks like this:
<body>
<?php
?>
<br />
</form>
</body>
Note that <?php?> tags are not symmetrical like normal HTML tags. The web
browser thinks of PHP as one gigantic tag! It also is good to note these other PHP
tags you might see: <? ?> and <script language = "php"></script>. Loaded in the
web browser it looks something like Figure 4.1.
Well, there is a reason why it looks the same: Nothing has really changed! We
have added a placeholder for some PHP code, but we havent entered any code!
Lets do some basic stuff. Enter the following lines:
echo "$_POST[fullname]. You are from $_POST[address]. Your comments were
$_POST[comments]. <br> ";
When you see the word echo in a PHP program, the following text is displayed on
the screen. In this case, we are displaying the information inputted on the form.
Do you remember when we set the forms method to post? Well, all the data that
the user typed in the form is put into a storage device called $_POST. See all those
references to $_POST in the PHP code? The letters in the brackets immediately
following $_POST access the contents of the form element that had that name in the
HTML form. So, the users address was put into a textbox with the name set to
address. Therefore, the users address is stored in $_POST[address]. The entire
statement is echoed and the variables are displayed in place of the $_POST[]
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Chapter 4
Figure 4.1
The form with <?php ?> tags added.
sections. When you put that into the source, your code will look like the following, and you can see the result in Figure 4.2:
<body>
<?php
$_POST[comments]. <br> "
?>
<br />
<form method="post">
Figure 4.2
The form with some PHP added.

</form>
</body>
Caution
If you run this code on a server with strict warnings turned on, you may get some strange errors
about undefined indices. Adding an if(isset()) clause will fix this error. You can see how to
do this later on in this same section, just before we start talking about variables.
You see some new words written! The variables havent been sent yet, so it just
says . You are from . Your comments were .. Enter your name, address, and some
comments into the form and press the submit button. Suddenly, the page looks
like Figure 4.3. Cool, huh? Now it reects exactly what was said to you! Figure 4.4
shows what the source looks like.
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Chapter 4
Figure 4.3
The form after being submitted.
Why does the page show ; ?>?

If you are following this program and try running the web page, there is a chance you might get
an error in which none of the PHP code works. The reason is that you are not accessing the page
correctly through your web server. PHP only works if it is accessed through the Apache web server.
In general, you get the error if you double-click a web page to open it. If you find the web page by
using localhost in your URL, you will get the correct page. Refer back to Chapter 1 to learn
about installation and setting up your web server.
By the way, did you notice how annoying it was that the web form showed a
sentence with blanks? Well, check out what we can do easily with PHP. Using a
little bit of code, we can make the text disappear when the page is rst seen, and
reappear when the page is submitted. We need to change the PHP code that we
designed earlier to look like this:
<?php
if (isset($_POST[name])){
Variables
Figure 4.4
The source of the form.

$_POST[comments]. <br> "
}
?>
Variables
Variables are the backbone of any programming languagebut what is a variable? All variables contain a value that you can change throughout the program.
What can a variable hold? Well, anything really. If you want to track who last
visited your site to use the form, you can store the visitors name inside a variable.
If you want to create a message board, a variable can save the message that is to
be posted.
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Chapter 4
Table 4.1 PHP Data Types

Type
Description
Boolean
Integer
Float
String
Array
Object
Resource
NULL
Represents TRUE or FALSE.

Any number that does not use a decimal point.
Any number with a decimal point.
A series of characters, like a sentence or any form of text.
An ordered map that maps values to keys.
A representative piece of a class.
A special variable that holds a reference to an external resource.
A variable that has no value.
Types
There are numerous types of variables, and theyre listed in Table 4.1. Each
type stores a different type of data. For example, PHP draws a distinction between the number 343 and 343.14. PHP handles them different ways, so you can
get some weird results when you try to divide a whole number by a fraction, for
instance.
Different variables help prevent you from doing something impossible, such as
adding a number to a string, which is a set of letters. What is 6 + Hello World? I
dont know, and if I were programming something, I wouldnt want to nd out!
We arent going to be using all of these types in this book, because some of them
are rare and not necessary for basic PHP programming. Lets go over the ones we
will use.
n
Integers are very common and encase a number, positive or negative,

without a decimal point. See these examples:
n
314
2141003
Boolean is used for items that have only two states. For example, a checkbox
can be either on (TRUE) or off (FALSE). Obviously the following are the only
things Boolean types will look like:
n
TRUE
FALSE
Variables
n
Float are sometimes called double. Doubles and oats are treated as interchangeable by PHP. Float variables (which is short for oating-point
variable) is similar to an integer except that it has a decimal point. Some
examples of oats follow:
n
769.124
22385.124412
0.9993858
Strings are a different type of beast altogether. While oats and integers
contain numbers, strings contain text. In the following examples, notice the
surrounding quotation marks. They tell PHP that a string is being dealt with.
n
"Hello, World!"
"Welcome to my web site."
"Please donate money to me!"
You know what a variable is. You even know the different types. All you need to
know is how to use them! First, know that you cannot use variables in HTML;
you must use them within PHP. As a result, whenever you need a variable, escape
from HTML, just like you did in Chapter 1. Remember? Whenever we needed to
escape from HTML, we wrote this:
<?php
...
?>
Notice that there is no space between the question mark and the less-than and
greater-than (<>) signs. If you dont escape correctly from HTML, none of your
PHP will work.
Inserting
So lets add a variable in there now. You can create a variable and use it by
choosing a name and adding a dollar sign ($) to the beginning of it. For example,
the following is a valid variable-name assignment:
$testvariable=25;
Using that name, you could escape from HTML and get into PHP like this:
<?php
$testvariable=25;
?>
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Chapter 4
Look at that. While we are at it, lets put that entire block of code directly
into a web page and see what it makes! The following code is on the CD as
phpft04-01.php :
<head>
<title>PHP Test Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>
Following is the PHP code. It should reflect whatever PHP you type in!
<p>
<p>
<?php
$testvariable=25;
?>
<p>
<p>You see anything interesting?

</body>
</html>
As you can see, we have a lot of HTML, which creates the page. Then we have a
section where the PHP executes, and then the program ends with HTML again.
Lets load this up in a browser. Make sure you load it up through your web server
using localhost, just as you always do when you need to execute PHP. What you
see will probably look a lot like Figure 4.5.
Uh oh. It looks blank. Well, why dont we take a look at the source to gure out
what went wrong. You can see the source by right-clicking the page and choosing
View Source. Figure 4.6 shows the source.
Uh oh again. The source seems blank. Its almost like the PHP code just, well,
disappeared!
Actually, this is exactly what we want it to do. The web page deals with the PHP
code before putting it on the screen. Remember when I said HTML is a static
language? Web browsers can only deal with static content, and PHP is certainly a
Variables
Figure 4.5
The phpft04-01.php file.
variable language. Because of this, PHP converts itself into HTML before the
document is displayed on the screen. In doing so, it strips away all of the PHP
code and translates any important PHP parts into HTML. So, lets take another
look at the PHP code from this document:
<?php
$testvariable=25;
?>
Looks pretty good, right? But what did we do? We created and assigned a variable. But we didnt do anything with the variable! Variables store any type of data
depending on the context, so because this variable is assigned to an integer, the
variable has an integer type.
Fortunately, you can do a lot of very interesting things with a simple piece of data
like that. How about we make it display the value of the variable on the page? To
do this, we need to use something called a language construct. A language construct is built into the PHP language and does a specied job. In this case, the
language construct we are looking for is echo, which prints out the results of any
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Chapter 4
Figure 4.6
The phpft04-01.php source.
operation or variable. To use echo, you simply type in the construct name within
PHP bounding areas, followed by the data you wish to display. You can choose
whether to use parentheses. You can decide not to include them and everything
will come out ne.
Lets edit the PHP section to use the echo construct now. It will look like the
following:
<?php
$testvariable=25;
echo $testvariable;
?>
Whats with the semicolon?

If you have been looking closely at the PHP sections of code, you might have noticed that a
semicolon appears after each statement. Why? Well, PHP is broken down into several statements,
all of which do a different thing. You might write one statement that creates a variable, followed
by another statement that deletes it, followed by another statement that reassigns the variable.
Variables
PHP needs to know where each statement stops and starts, and it uses semicolons at the end of
each statement to judge the ending point. You can use multiple statements per line, as long as
you have a semicolon after each major part. For example, the following code snippets arte
equivalent to each other:
<?php
$example=25;
echo "$example";
$example = 75;
echo "$example";
?>
<?php $example=25; echo "$example"; $example = 75; echo "$example";
?>
Variable
The same variable changes to two different values and is echoed both times. PHP does not care
about white space, such as spaces or tabs, at all in almost all cases. You can condense the
document however much you wish. Notice, though, that the first version of the code is a heck of a
lot easier to read than the second one. Try to make your web pages simple and understandable, so
in this situation, it is probably a good idea to use the first version of the code.
Pretty cool, huh! Lets see what the results are. Figure 4.7 shows what the new
page looks like. Hey, how about that! It works! The 25 we wanted to show up
appeared! What does the HTML source look like? Figure 4.8 shows you.
Instead of showing all of the PHP code, the document displays, very simply, the
results of the echo operation. PHP will only show what you tell it to show; the rest
it either hides or performs another operation.
Rules
So we have now created our very own integer and displayed it on the screen. Lets
go over some rules for the creation of variables. They have to abide by some
naming guidelines.
Other than those listed here, the variable-naming rules are very lenient. Just be
careful, and dont make any mistakes! An important thing to keep in mind is to
make sure you keep your variable names descriptive. For example, do not use
variable names such as $i. Instead, make it $numberCounter. You want to be able
to tell what the variable does when you look at the source code a few weeks after
you write it.
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Chapter 4
Figure 4.7
Start with Letter or Underscore
Variable names can only start with a letter or an underscore (_). After the rst
letter, a variable can be made up of letters, underscores, or numbers. Therefore,
these variable names are both valid:
$newname
$_VariableForUse
Because it starts with a number, this variable is invalid:

$2variable
Mind Your Case
PHP is a case-sensitive language, meaning that capitalization matters in the

variable names, statements, and other calls in your programs. $Variable is different than $variable. Be extra careful that you dont accidentally capitalize
variables in your code when you dont want them to be capitalized.
Variables
Figure 4.8
Functions and Parameters

Lets go back to that program we were just working on and see what we can do
with some more variables. Remember how we talked about the different types of
variables? There is a cool function in PHP called get_type(). This function
returns a variables type, so you can nd out if it is a Boolean, a string, an integer,
or something else.
What is a function? It is very similar to the echo language construct we used
earlier. A function is a piece of centralized code that can be called from within
your program and reused over and over again. It is basically a way to have PHP
perform some actions on some data. There are predened and self-written
functions. I stick with predened in this chapter.
You can send something called a parameter to many functions. The function then
acts upon this parameter. In the case of get_type(), the parameter we pass is the
variable whose type we want to know. Functions can also return a value, which
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Chapter 4
can be used for many purposes. Here, the return value is the name of the type that
the variable uses, such as integer or oat.
Lets use get_type() in a program. We are going to add this function to the
program we created earlier. Lets create a bunch of variables of different types,
then see if the types were correctly identied by PHP. First create the variables:
<?php
$integervar=25;
$booleanvar=TRUE;
$floatvar=314.13;
$stringvar="Hello, World!";
$nullvar=NULL;
Now echo out the variable types:

echo
echo
echo
echo
echo
?>
"integervar: ".gettype($integervar);
"<br>booleanvar: ".gettype($booleanvar);
"<br>floatvar: ".gettype($floatvar);
"<br>stringvar: ".gettype($stringvar);
"<br>nullvar: " .gettype($nullvar);
Putting it all into the HTML document, we get the following:

<head>
<title>PHP Test Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>
Following is the PHP code. It should reflect whatever PHP you type in!
<p>
<p>
<?php
$integervar=25;
$booleanvar=TRUE;
$floatvar=314.13;
$stringvar="Hello, World!";
$nullvar=NULL;
Variables
echo "integervar: ".gettype($integervar);
echo "<br>booleanvar: ".gettype($booleanvar);
echo "<br>floatvar: ".gettype($floatvar);
echo "<br>stringvar: ".gettype($stringvar);
echo "<br>nullvar: " .gettype($nullvar);
?>
<p>
<p>You see anything interesting?

</body>
</html>
So how does this look? Well, check out Figure 4.9 to see.
Not bad at all, huh? We got the page working correctly! The only thing that looks
a little weird is that the oat variable is classied as a double, but both double and
oat are equivalent, so it is not a problem. Look at what source is generated in
Figure 4.10. The source shows how PHP reinterprets the code to become just
regular HTML.
Figure 4.9
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Chapter 4
Figure 4.10
Now that Ive gone over some basic variables, let me show you some other
special types.

PHP includes some predened variablesthose it designates. Some of these
variables are created by the web server or sent by GET or POST forms (which I went
over in Chapter 3). You can use these variables within your program for a lot of
things. Before we move on, lets talk a little about the difference between GET
and POST.
GET Versus POST
In all of your forms, you have the option of using GET or POST. Both are useful in
different cases, so you should know the difference between the two. When using a
GET form, all of the variable data are passed along in the URLs address bar. This
means that you can look at the URL and see all the variables and their values. On
the other hand, POST hides all the variables from the address barinstead, it is
transparently passed to the PHP program.
For example, say you had a page at www.something.com/page.php, which uses a
form, and that the form passes the data to itself. After inputting the values
and pressing submit, the address bar might look like the following:
GET
http://www.something.com/page.php?first=value1&second=value2
In this case, there are two elds on the form: The rst eld has the name set to
rst, and the user entered in value1 in the textbox. The second eld is called
second and the value is value2. As you can see, all the data is passed along the
address bar. This means that the user can manually change the values without
even going through the form. POST, on the other hand, does not show the data in
the URL address bar. After submitting the form, the address will look like this:
http://www.something.com/page.php
So why would you use one or the other? In some cases, it is important to secure
data by not passing it in the address bar. For example, if the form is a log in, you
dont want the password to be displayed in the address bar; you would use POST.
Alternatively, if you want the user to be able to bookmark a page through a form,
using GET allows that.
Arrays
To access the predened variables, we have to use a variable array. Arrays are sets
of variables that all have the same name, but are referenced by a specic number.
Arrays look exactly like a normal variable, except it has a reference number
attached to the end of the name. For example, while a normal variable might be
called $name, an array of three names would look like this: $name[0], $name[1],
$name[2]. In addition, arrays can use reference words rather than digitsfor
example, $name["rst"] or $name["second"]. The number or word that you use
to reference the variable in the array (such as rst or 0) is called a key. You use the
=> operator to send the value into the key.
You can create your own arrays in a few ways. The easiest way is to simply dene
each individual item from the array. For example, to create a few variables of the
array $name, we could do it like this:
$name[1] = "Maneesh";
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$name[2] = "John";
$name[3] = "Smith";
There are some quicker ways. You can add values to the array at the same time
you create it. This is done as follows:
$name = array(key => value, key =>value);
As you can see, you can designate any number of items in the array at the same
time by using different values and keys. We could do this with our $name array as
follows:
$name = array(1=>"Maneesh", 2 => "John", 3 => "Smith");
We now have an array that contains these three names. To print out Maneesh, for
example, the value of $name[1], we would write this:
echo $name[1];
Predefined Variables
A lot of the predened variables that PHP creates deal with forms, like the
ones we created in Chapter 3. When you use a form, submit it with the
method post or get. There are a few differences on these two, which we will
go over in the next chapter, but when you use a form that submits, it transfers
its data (such as a name or comments) through a method of either post or
get.
When the page nishes submitting, it passes the data to the following page inside
a predened variable array. It will use either the $_GET or a $_POST array,
depending on the method you used. To access the actual item, make the arrays
key the same as the name eld of the part of the form you want.
This may sound a little complex, but it will make a little more sense if I show you
an example. Lets create two pages: a form that asks for only a name and a page
that displays the name. Because the rst page is only a form, it can be named
form.html, while the second requires PHP and therefore needs the extension
.php. We will make it phpft04-04.php. (By the way, I go into much more depth
on programs of this nature in the next chapter. This one is simply to show how to
access a predened array.)
A simple web page with a post form might look like the following. This is the text
to the form.html le.

<head>
<title>A sample PHP form</title>
</head>
<body>
<form action="phpft04-04.php" name="form" method="post">
Please enter your first name: <input type="text" name="firstName">
<br />
<input type="submit">
</form>
</body>
</html>
This is a very basic page that displays a small form and a submit button. It looks
like Figure 4.11.
Figure 4.11
The form.html file.
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Chapter 4
Now you need a PHP page that takes the variable outside the form and displays it
on the page. Notice that in the HTML document, the form uses the post method
and the text eld is called rstName. This is how the PHP document appears.
<head>
<title>The results of the form using PHP</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
//Echo out the first name of the userecho The name that you put into the previous
form was .$_POST[firstName];
?>
</body>
</html>
Figure 4.12
The php04-04.php file.
Table 4.2 Predefined Variable Arrays

Array
Description
$GLOBALS
$_SERVER
$_GET
$_POST
$_REQUEST
$_COOKIE
$_FILES
$_ENV
$_SESSION
References every global variable available; rarely used.

Variables set by the server, such as the name of the file being used.
Variables from a form that uses the GET method.
Variables from a form that use the POST method.
A combination of the variables from $_GET, $_POST, and $_COOKIE.
Variables that are provided as cookies, which can be set.
Files that are uploaded via HTTP post.
PHP environment variables.
Variables that are currently registered to scripts session.
The echo line displays the text within the single quotation marks () and then
attaches that line to the variable $_POST[name] using the dot operator (.),
which joins a string to a variable. What is this crazy text that follows the //? Well
actually, that is a comment. If you enter a //, anything that follows it on the same
line is hidden from the program. This helps you remember what the program
does when you look at it later. Comments are very important, so use them
whenever you can! This page shows how you can use this predened variable
array to use forms. The page ends up looking like Figure 4.12.
You know all about how to use these arrays now; nd out some more of the
arrays that you can use. Check out Table 4.2.
These are the most common, but even some of these are rarely used. You dont
need to know all about them, so I discuss them when they come up.
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chapter 5
Constants,
Expressions,
and Operators
In this chapter, we are going to go over some of the language basics. You use
constants, expressions, and operators in a lot of programs and web pages, so it is
very important to learn all about them. Lets move forward and work with
them. Ready?
Constants
Constants are an important concept to learn because they can make your programs a lot safer. Imagine a program that converts hours into days. You might
have a hoursPerDay constant that always equals 24. You can dene constants, but
once they are dened they can never be redened or undened. Unlike variables,
constants never change throughout the entire program. Use constants whenever,
for instance, you have a value you want to multiply all inputs by or a known
natural constant such as pi. Because the program cannot change the constants
value, it is guaranteed to work correctly.
You dene constants differently than you do variables. With variables, you simply
do something like this:
$variable = value;
You can change the value again just by doing something like this:
$variable = newvalue;
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Chapter 5
Constants, Expressions, and Operators
Makes sense, right? Well, with constants, it is a little different. Dening a constant
requires the use of a function called dene(). You need to pass along two parameters to the dene() function for it to work. The rst parameter is the name of
the constant, and the second is the constants value. The function is dened like
this:
define("CONSTANTNAME", constantvalue);
Here are a few dened sample constants:

define("BOOLEANCONSTANT", TRUE);
define("INTEGERCONSTANT", 768);
define("FLOATCONSTANT", 469.12);
define("STRINGCONSTANT", "I am a string!");
Pretty cool, huh? I only dened these four types of constants (Boolean, integer,
oat, and string) because they are the only valid types of constants. Constants can
be dened anywhere in your program and are accessible without regard to scope.
Another difference between constants and variables: When using a variable, you
use a $ sign. For example, to print out a variable on the screen, you might do this:
echo $variablename;
However, constants are referred to simply by name; they do not need a symbol.
To display a constant on the screen, you would probably do something like
this:
echo CONSTANTNAME;
Constants are like variables in that they are case sensitive. Make sure you
pay attention to their capitalization. You can capitalize all the letters (as I have
been doing, simply for stylistic purposes) or you can choose all lowercase
letters. However, whenever you reference your constants in the program, make
sure that you use the correct capitalization scheme. For example, say you write a
program that denes NAME as Smith, and the program echoes it on the screen. You
need to echo it with the correct capitalization. What happens when we echo it
incorrectly?
<?php
define("NAME","Smith");
echo name;
?>
Operators
There is an apparent error in this page. We created the constant to be named

NAME. However, we displayed the variable name, which has not been created yet.
Figure 5.1 shows you the results.
Figure 5.1
The phpft05-01.php incorrect constant file.
See how it displays name rather than the correct value? PHP assumes that if you
have not created a constant for the value you echo, it should echo it as a string.
Therefore, it converts NAME to name. Lets rewrite it so that it uses the correct
capitalization and check out the results in Figure 5.2:
<?php
define("NAME","Smith");
echo NAME;
?>
Operators
An operator is a helper in PHP that deals with one or more values and returns a
different value. This may seem very vague, but operators are everywhere. Think
about a math class. When you do basic addition, what are you doing? You are
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Chapter 5
Figure 5.2
The phpft05-02.php correct constant file.
taking in two values (7 and 5, for example), adding them together (7 + 5), and
receiving a different value (12). In this case, the plus sign is the operator causing
the change.
Think about the gettype() function that we went over in Chapter 4. This
function takes in a variable name and returns its type. This function is an
operator because it takes in a value (the variable) and results in something
different (a type). Sure, these two pieces of data may be different, but the function
still acts upon it!
There are three classes of operators.
Note
Even though functions do act upon data, we generally dont think of functions as operators. We
consider functions to be their own type of construction, and just deal with PHP default operators
as operators.
Operators
Unary
A unary operator acts only upon one input. For example, the ++ operator
increments a variable by 1. For example, assume you type the following:
$x = 10
$x++;
$echo $x;
You get the result 11.
Binary
Binary operators act upon two pieces of data. Think about the addition problem
I just mentioned. There were two pieces of data: 5 and 7. Both of these, along
with the operator , achieve a new result. Binary operators include arithmetic
operators such as multiplication and division, as well as testing operators such
as greater than or less than.
Ternary
There is only one ternary operator. This one is a little weird if you have never seen
it before, and it is used a lot less than the binary operators, but it can be powerful
when used correctly. The operator is called the ?: operator because it works with
three sets of data. The rst set comes before the question mark, and it is a test; for
example, $x>$y determines whether $x is greater than $y.
n
If the test is true, then the result is after the question mark (but before the
colon).
If the test is false, then the result is after the colon.
Before going into the rest of the operators, look at an example using the ternary
operator. If you want to do the same test to check if $x is larger than $y, you
might want to echo out the results. Take a look at the following PHP document,
then check out Figure 5.3 to see the result:
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Using the ternary operator</title>
</head>
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Chapter 5
Figure 5.3
The phpft05-03.php ternary operator file.
<body>
<?php
$x = 7;
$y = 10;
//If x is greater than y, $ans = "greater", otherwise it equals "less"
$ans = ($x > $y) ? "greater" : "less";
//Print out the result
echo "<p>After the test, we have determined that $x is $ans than $y</p>";
?>
</body>
</html>
In this case, we gave variable values to $x and $y. We then used the ternary
operator to give a value to the variable $ans, which could have the result of
Operators
greater or less, depending on whether $x is greater than or less than $y. Lets take
an in-depth look.
$ans = ($x > $y) ? "greater" : "less";
First, $ans is created and is left to the side to be assigned to the operation results.
Next, the operator tests the expression ($x > $y). If this is true, then the rst result
is returned: greater. If the test is false, then the second result is returned: less.
Because $ans is assigned to the result, it can only be either greater or less. In this
example, $x was not greater than $y, so the result was false and $ans was less. We
then plugged this value into an echo statement:
echo "After the test, we have determined that $x is $ans than $y";
This statement echoes the results. First, it writes out "After the test, we have
determined that .". Then it writes out the value of $x, followed by is, displays the
$ans value, and shows than $y". Because $ans can only be greater or less, it will
make a valid sentence. By the way, if $x and $y are both equal to the same
number, the program is blank. In a real program, you need to handle that event.
You might have noticed that I used a different scheme to write out the echo
statement. Earlier, we used single quotes to echo out text; here I used double
quotes. Check out the sidebar to nd out why.
Why can I echo with double quotes or single quotes?
When using an echo command (or any command that requires quotation marks), consider
whether you want to use single or double quotes. When writing out basic text, there is no
difference. For example, echo Hello, World! is identical to echo "Hello, World!".
However, when you use variables or constants within an echo statement, double quotes and
single quotes are very different. Double quotes allow you to place a variable directly into the
string, referenced by a $ symbol; PHP substitutes the variables value. However, with single
quotes, the value is not substituted; instead, the page displays the quotes name. To use variables
within single-quoted statements, you need to use the dot operator (.), ending the string with a
single quote and using the dot operator to join a variable and the string.
Arithmetic Operators
Arithmetic operators are the most common. Most are basically the same ones
you have known your entire life: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and
division. Arithmetic operators act just like you would expect them to when you
do something like what you see in Table 5.1.
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Chapter 5
Table 5.1 Arithmetic Operators

Task
Symbol
Example
Add two numbers

Subtract two numbers
Multiply two numbers
Divide two numbers
Retrieve a negative number
Retrieve a division remainder
Addition (+)
Subtraction ()
Asterisk (*)
Forward slash (/)
Subtraction ()
Percentage (%)
$sum = $a + $b
$different = $a $b
$product = $a * $b
$quotient = $a / $b
$negative = $a
$remainder = $a % $b?
The last two might be new to you. The negative operator returns the numbers
negative value. For example, using the negative operator on 7 would return -7.
This operator is a unary operator, meaning it only works on one input. The last
arithmetic operator is called the modulus operator. It works in the same way as
any of the binary operators. For instance, 7%7 would return 0 because there is no
remainder in a 7/7 division problem. In 9%7, the answer is 2, because there is a
remainder. Modulus is awesome for checking some specic things, such as if a
number is even or odd. 6%2 is 0, meaning the number (6) is even, and 5%2 is odd
(and it is equal to 1), meaning that 5 is odd. If you are checking remainders,
modulus is excellent for that purpose.
Lets put all these arithmetic operators into a program. We will use a basic
calculator form. Here is the form that we created to do this job. You can nd it on
the CD as phpft05-04.html:
<html>
<head>
<title>A Basic Arithmetic Calculator</title>
</head>
<body>
<form name="calculator" method="get" action="phpft05-04.php">
<p>
Enter your first value:
<input type="text" name="first" />
<p>Choose an operation:
<select name="operation">
Operators
<option
<option
<option
<option
<option
value="+">+
value="-">value="*">*
value="/">/
value="%">%
</select>
<p>
Enter your second value:
<input type="text" name="second" />
<p>
<input type="submit" >
</form>
</body>
</html>
This looks like Figure 5.4, where I substituted some sample values.
Figure 5.4
The phpft05-03.htmlcalculator form file.
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Chapter 5
As you can see, this creates a sample form which sends its data through the GET
method to a PHP le. The form code also creates a cool drop-down box, pictured
in Figure 5.5.
Figure 5.5
A drop-down box.
The following <select> HTML element makes the drop-down box show up:
<select name="operation">
<option
<option
<option
<option
<option
value="+">+
value="-">value="*">*
value="/">/
value="%">%
</select>
Each option has a value, which you set. When using PHP, the selected option is
passed into the $_GET[] or $_POST[] variable, just as if the user had entered the
value in a textbox. Therefore, if the user selects /, the $_GET[operation]
variable will be equal to /.
Now, the PHP document is a little more complex than anything we have seen so
far. Check out the code:
<html>
<head>
<title>PHP Calculator</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
Operators
//put form variables in standard variables
$a = $_GET[first];
$b = $_GET[second];
$op = $_GET[operation];
echo "The result of your expression, $a $op $b is ";
//Check the operation and deal with the result correctly
if($op==+)
{
echo $a + $b;
}
if($op==-)
{
echo $a - $b;
}
if($op==*)
{
echo $a * $b;
}
if($op==/)
{
echo $a/$b;
}
if ($op==%)
{
echo $a%$b;
}
?>
</body>
</html>
Thats pretty crazy, huh? Check out the results in Figure 5.6.
This page introduces you to something new: conditional statements. For this
page, you have to do something different depending on what operator the user
chooses. Because of this, we use the if statements you see in the preceding code.
Basically, the statement tests whether something is true. This test is within the
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Chapter 5
Figure 5.6
Figure 5.7
The address bar using the GET method.
parentheses after the word if. If the test is true, then whatever is in the curly
braces ({ }) occurs. If not, then the statement doesnt occur. (I go over this in
depth in the next part, when I talk about conditional statements. I wanted to
introduce this here because if statements are everywhere and it helps to
understand what they do, even if you cant write them yourself yet.)
One other thing to notice in this page: This is the rst time we used the GET
method rather than POST. Take a look at the address bar after lling out the form
and pressing submit. Figure 5.7 shows you what mine says.
You see the tricky part? It actually encodes the variables within the address bar.
This means that you can see the variables you passed along with the form just by
Operators
Figure 5.8
Changing the variables in a GET form.
looking at the URL. This also means that you can bookmark the results, and they
will continue to show the correct results. With the POST method, you lose the
form results each time. Also, Figure 5.8 shows what happens when I change the
address bar to pass / rather than * for the operator. You can see here that it
actually changes the page results.
Using GET is great for pages where you want a visitor to be able to return. Since
the data is stored in the URL, the user can easily bookmark the page with the
correctly inputted information and access the interpreted data without submitting the form each time. However, GET has some drawbacks:
n
There is a URL-length limit that prevents you from having unlimited

variables in the page.
Information is not secure. When passing secure information, such as a

password, it is much better to use POST so that the sensitive data is not shown
in the address bar.
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Chapter 5
Table 5.2 Comparison Operators

Task
Symbol
Example
Return true if values are equal.

Return true if values are equal and the same type.
Return true if the values are not equal.
Return true if the values are unequal or are
different types.
Return true if the first value is less than the second.
Return true if the first value is larger than the second.
Return true if the first value is less than or equal
to the second.
Return true if the first value is greater than or equal
to the second.
Equal (=)
Identical (===)
Not equal (<>)
Not identical (!==)
$a
$a
$a
$a
Less than (<)

Greater than (>)
Less than or
equal to (<=)
Greater than or
equal to (>=)
$a < $b
$a > $b
$a <= $b
== $b
=== $b
!= $b or $a <> $b
!== $b
$a >= $b
Comparison Operators
Take a look at the PHP document. See how the if statements test for equality
using the == operator? Thats a comparison operator. Comparison operators allow
you to test two values against each other, and if they relate correctly, the test
returns true. If the relationship specied by the test is incorrect, the return value
is false. All comparison operators are binary, meaning they take two values in for
input. Take a look at Table 5.2 for all of them.
These operators can be used within any type of ow-control system, such as if
tests or, as you learn later, switch tests. They are great tools for checking
values.
Note
Keep in mind that the equality operator (==) is different than the assignment operator (=). The
assignment operator changes the variable on the left to have a new value, while the equality
variable tests for equality and returns a 1 if true.
Logical Operators
Logical operators are used when two or more comparisons are needed for a test.
For example, you would use a logical operator if you needed to determine that
$number is greater than 7 and also less than 10. With logical operators, you can do
this and execute a statement only if $number is equal to 8 or 9. Table 5.3 lists the
logical operators. For this table, $a and $b are comparisons, so in the preceding
example, $a would be $number > 7 and $b would be $number < 10.
Operators
Table 5.3 Logical Operators

Task
Return
Return
Return
Return
Return
Return
true
true
true
true
true
true
if both comparisons are true.

if either comparison is true or both comparisons are true.
if either comparison is true, but not both.
is the comparison is not true.
if both comparisons are true.
if either comparison is true or both comparisons are true.
Symbol
Example
and
or
xor
!
&&
k
$a and $b
$a or $b
$a xor $b
!$a
$a && $b
$a k $b
Precedence can be an issue with logical operators. Be careful to always use parentheses. Heres an example: Pretend that you have three different statementsA, B,
and C. Here are two different tests:
n
(A and B) or C
A and (B or C)
The test in the parentheses is always executed rst.
Other Operators
A few more operators dont really t into the other categories, but you should
know them because they are useful.
Assignment
You know this one already, because you used it to create a variable. This operator
uses the = symbol, and it assigns a value to a variable. For example, the following
is an assignment operation:
$x = 13;
The variable $x has the value 13. This assignment operation returns the value of
the assignment, so if you set a new variable equal to the result of this operation, it
is also equal to 13.
Incrementing and Decrementing
The operators add 1 to the value of an integer, meaning they are all unary. Look
at the following samples of incrementing (the rst two) and decrementing
operators (the last two):
$a++
$++a
$a-$--a
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Chapter 5
The value of each number increases by 1 when using the ++ operator and
decreases by 1 when using the -- operator. For example, look at the following:
$a = 10;
$a++;
echo $a;
$a--;
echo $a;
The variable $a is given a starting value of 10. It is then incremented, and the
rst echo statement shows the variable as having a value of 11. The second
echo statement shows $a as having the value of 10, because the -- operation
decrements it.
Note
You might be wondering why both operators can be attached to either the beginning or the end of
the variable name. Attaching it to the front versus the back has similar results, but there is one
important difference: When attaching the operator to the front, the variable is incremented by 1,
and then the new value is returned. When the operator is attached to the back, the old value of
the operator is returned, and then the variable is incremented by 1. For example, look at the
following code:
$a=10;
echo $a++;
$a=10;
echo ++$a;
The first echo statement will show the variable as being equal to 10, but immediately after the
echo, the variable becomes 11. On the second echo statement, the variable becomes 11 and
then the variable is echoed.
String Dot Operator and Dot Assignment
The string dot operator attaches different parts of strings together to form one
big string. Take a look at the following code:
$firstpart = "Welcome to ";
$secondpart= "my web site. ";
$fullstring = $firstpart . $secondpart;
$fullstring now
contains the value "Welcome to my web site." The dot operator

joins the two parts of the string.
Expressions
The dot assignment operator (.=) appends a new string to the end of the rst
string. For example, the following code puts in "Welcome to my web site.":
$text = "Welcome to ";
$text .= "my web site.";
Expressions
Expressions are basically the most important element of PHP. In essence, anything that you write in PHP, anything that has a value, is considered an
expression. If you create a statement that does something, it is generally an
expression.
A very simple example of an expressioncreating and assigning a variable
might look something like this:
$variablename = "value";
This creates a variable called variablename that is assigned to some value. Because
"value" is a string, the variable $variablename will also be a string. See the
semicolon at the end? That marks the end of a statement.
What is the difference between a statement and an expression?
Statements and expressions are both very common and very important. All statements are
expressions, but not all expressions are statements. An expression is basically anything that has a
value within a web page, such as a test or an assignment. A statement is something that forces
something to be done, such as calling a function or an assignment. As you can see, an assignment
is also clearly an expression. You can easily differentiate statements and expressions by looking at
them---generally, statements end with a semicolon.
Expressions produce a value, which means that each expression returns a result.
Lets take a simple integer assignment:
$intvar = 15;
You might see two parts to this expression: the value 15 and the assignment to
$intvar. However, there is also one more stepthe result of the actual assignment itself. This action returns a value. The value returned from an assignment is
simply the value of the newly dened variable.
Lets look at an example of this. What happens if we assign a new variable to the
value of the assignment?
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Chapter 5
$secondvar = ($firstvar = 15);
will now have a result of 15, as will $rstvar. Both variables get the
same result. This example shows what expressions are all about. You will need
to use a mix of pure expressions and statements in your web pages to get the
results you are looking for, and many times you will need to use compounds
statements.
$secondvar
chapter 6
The Style Factor
This is the last chapter of the rst part! Thus far, weve learned a lot about PHP
programming, including designing a web page and forms, using variables and
operators, and communicating with expressions in our web pages. All of these
items are very important in PHP programming, but there is one part we have
neglected to talk about so far: style. I use the word style in the sense of cleanliness
and orderliness of your code. Whenever you develop a web page, you are going to
have to write some code. This code, whether it is in HTML or PHP, can get rather
large and ugly, so it is very important that you keep some structure within it.
No matter in what language you are writing your programs, your code style can
become a big concern. Take the time to develop a structure. It will help make
your code easier to understand.
Why Style?
You might be wondering why it even matters how organized or neat your code.
After all, you are the only one who looks at it, right? It shouldnt matter whether
your code is commented or easy to understandright?
Wrong. Absolutely wrong. Many times I have written code for a game or project,
and when I looked it over again three months later, I had no idea how the code
worked. Even worse, sometimes I had errors in the code that I could not x. If I
had spent just a few more minutes making it neater or more organized, my
efciency would have been hundreds of times better. Instead, I wasted hours
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simply trying to catch an error (or even simply gure out what was going on). I
once even read about a programmer who spent 30 minutes looking at a section of
code asking, Who is this idiot and what is he doing? He later found out that it
was his own work.
How can you achieve style? Take a look at the web page we designed:
<html><head><title>Quick Sample Page</title>
</head><body><h3>Welcome to our page!</h3>
<p>Hello,
World!
</p>
<p><b>I am some bolded text</b>,
<i>I am some italicized
text</i>, <u>and I am some underlined text</u>. <u><i>I am both underlined and
italicized.</i></u>
</body>
</html>
This code is badly spaced, poorly organized, and does not ow. However, even
though it looks poorly organized in code, check out how it looks on the screen in
Figure 6.1.
Figure 6.1
The unorganized phpft06-01.html file.
Why Style?
Now look at it spaced a little nicer:

<html>
<head>
<title>Quick Sample Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>
Hello, World!
</p>
<p>
<b>I am some bolded text</b>,
<i>I am some italicized text</i>,
<u>and I am some underlined text</u>.
<u><i>I am both underlined and italicized.</i></u>
</p>
</body>
</html>
A lot easier on the eyes this time, huh? You can see in Figure 6.2 that it looks
exactly the same. That is because HTML and PHP dont care about how many
spaces or tabs you put into your documentthey remove all the white space
before displaying the le on the screen. Because of this, its a lot better to make
easy to read in the rst place.
This is the same with PHP. The following two samples of code are
identical:
Example 1:
<?php$a = $_GET[first];
$b = $_GET[second]; $op = $_GET[operation]; echo "The result of your
expression, $a $op $b is ";
if($op==+)
{echo $a + $b; }if($op==-){
echo $a - $b; }if($op==*) {echo $a * $b;
}if($op==/){echo $a/$b;}
if ($op==%){
echo $a%$b;}?>
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Figure 6.2
The organized phpft06-01.html file.
Example 2:
<?php
$a = $_GET[first];
$b = $_GET[second];
if($op==+)
{
echo $a + $b;
}
if($op==-)
{
echo $a - $b;
}
if($op==*)
{
How to Style
echo $a * $b;
}
if($op==/)
{
echo $a/$b;
}
if ($op==%)
{
echo $a%$b;
}
?>
Isnt the second one so much nicer?
How to Style
There are millions of different style methods, but the most important part is that
you stay consistent. You must follow a pattern. If you stray, put your pattern into
words and print itlaminate it if you must. Again, the most important part is
staying consistent.
What does this mean? You can choose to make all of your variables start with var,
so that, for instance, a variable that contains a name is called $varname. Heck, you
could even make it called $afbkajfbkaname, as long as you stay so consistent that
your address variable is called $afbkajfbkaaddress. One popular way of keeping
track of your variables is to preface each name with the type of variable it is. For
example, a string called $strFirstName and an integer called $intAge.
Let me share some conventions that I follow for my own style. You dont have to
follow what I say, but these are good general guidelines that will help you to nd
your own style.
Capitalization
I leave all of my variables lowercased. You will see variables like the following in
my code:
$name
$homeaddress
$age
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Take a look at that second example, $homeaddress. Notice that it is two words. I
like to usually keep them both lowercase, and I can easily tell what it means.
However, some people prefer to split up words in a variable with capital letters:
$homeAddress
$HomeAddress
Iand just about everyone elsecapitalize all of my constants. Remember,

constants are designated using the dene() function.
TIME
CONVERSION
EMAILADDRESS
If you want to designate two words in a different way, you can use an underscore (_).
I use underscores for multiple-word functions. This makes it a little easier on the
eyes. I go over functions in Chapter 9, so you should learn how to style them as
well.
change_address()
build_model()
buy()
Underscores
One good way to organize your documents is to tab your tags and code. If you are
using several tags in an HTML document, you can space them out nicely:
<body>
<p>
<b>I am bold!</b>
</p>
</body>
If you do this, you can tell at a glance what tags refer to a piece of code.
Comments
Another important part of organization is understanding the use of comments.
When you write a program, it all makes sense to you at the time. You know
exactly why you wrote everything and how each piece of code does what it does.
This wont always be the case, however. In only a few weeks, you may forget
everything about how the program works.
How to Style
Comments allow you to add text that the web server throws away; they make no
difference on the outcome of the program. They will make a difference when you
need to look at it only a few months later.
You should use comments in these places:
n
At the beginning of every program
At the beginning of any large section of code
Just before any piece of code that other readers might not understand
Throughout the program to help the reader understand its purpose and goal
There are three methods of adding comments: C, C++, and Perl. All are named
after the programming languages in which they were introduced.
C Method
The C method allows you to comment out as much code as you want, spanning
multiple lines. It does not take into account any line breaks. To use the C method,
you enclose whatever you want commented by /* and */. For example, look at
the following:
echo "I will be printed";
/* echo "I wont be printed";
Neither will I. */
As you can see, anything within the /* and */ marks is ignored.

C++ Method
The C++ method is a little different. This comments out anything on the same
line, starting with the // symbol and ending with the new line. Look at the
following example:
echo "I will be printed"; // I wont be printed, because of comments
echo "however, I will be printed, because this is a new line.";
Perl Method
The Perl method is exactly the same as the C++ method, except it uses a # sign:
echo "I will be printed"; # I wont be printed, because of comments
echo "however, I will be printed, because this is a new line."
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The last thing we are going to do in this chapter is take that earlier code segment
and add comments. Check it out:
<?php
//Create three variables that take in the GET form data
$a = $_GET[first]; //This is the first operand
$b = $_GET[second]; //This is the second operand
$op = $_GET[operation]; //This is the operation to be preformed
//Write out introduction text to the screen
//If an addition problem, echo out an addition answer.
if($op==+)
{
echo $a + $b;
}
//If a subtraction problem, echo out a subtraction answer.
if($op==-)
{
echo $a - $b;
}
//If an multiplication problem, echo out a multiplication answer.
if($op==*)
{
echo $a * $b;
}
//If a division problem, echo out a division answer.
if($op==/)
{
echo $a/$b;
}
//If a modulus problem, echo out a modulus answer.
if ($op==%)
{
echo $a%$b;
}
?>
Easier to read and understand, huh?
chapter 7
Program Flow:
Control
Structures
You are going to use what you learned earlier to develop some really cool pages
and PHP programs. Control structures are part of that, taking a comparison
statement and performing a comparison. If the comparison is true, special
statements are executed. If the comparison is false, the statements are skipped.
In this chapter, where I go over loops and branching structures, you learn ways to
make your programs interactive and how to get PHP to act upon data and
perform different actions depending on input.
Branching Structures
Control structures include branching structures, which allow your program to
make all these things:
decisions
if. . .then
Loops, which let you execute some code repeatedly
Functions that put specialized code into their own separate section
When you run a program, you expect it to go from beginning to end. Usually,
the program displays everything that is in the code, putting each section one
after another. When you write an HTML page, every part of the page is displayed
in the same order as it is dened in the source. However, you might want
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to change that ow. You might need to perform a different action because
some special event occurs. PHP offers a way to do this with branching
structures.
if
The easiest way is to use the if branching structure. A basic backbone looks like
the following:
if (condition is true)
{
//execute statements
}
You obviously need to replace the comparison with a condition test. Condition
tests are done using the comparison operators, such as <, >, !=, and so on. Take a
look at Chapter 5 to see the comparison methods.
We will create a page that allows a user to enter two numbers, and we use PHP to
compare the two numbers and say which is bigger. First, lets take a look at the
form that would do this. We are going to use the GET submit method.
<html>
<head>
<title>Comparing two numbers</title>
</head>
<body>
<form name="compare" action="phpft07-01.php" method="get">
Enter your first number: <input type="text" name="firstnumber">
<br />Enter your second number: <input type="text" name="secondnumber">
<br /><br /><input type="submit">
</form>
</body>
</html>
Figure 7.1
The phpft07-01.html form file.
This page ends up looking like Figure 7.1. I added the numbers into the textbox
after opening the page.
Now look at the PHP page:
<html>
<head>
<title>Comparison of two numbers</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
$a = $_GET[firstnumber];
$b = $_GET[secondnumber];
echo "Your first number was $a.";
echo "<br>Your second number was $b.";
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Chapter 7
echo "<p>";
if ($a > $b)
{
echo "Your first number ($a) is greater than your second number ($b).";
}
if ($a < $b)
{
echo "Your second number ($b) is greater than your first number ($a).";
}
?>
</body>
</html>
You see how this page works? Figure 7.2 shows what it looks like.
Figure 7.2
The phpft07-01.php results file.
Figure 7.3
The form with equal values.
A couple if statements work together to determine whether the rst number is

larger than the second or vice versa. If the rst one is greater, that is echoed, and if
the second is greater than the rst, the correct result is echoed. However, what
happens if the numbers are equal? Check it out in Figure 7.3.
If the numbers are equal, nothing happens! We did not set up the program to do
anything if this situation occurs. We obviously need to x this.
else
Let me show you a new control structure that works tightly with the one
you already know: else. When you join an if structure to an else structure,
one of the two statements will be executed. If the comparison test is true, the
if statements are executed, and if the test is false, the else statements are
executed.
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Chapter 7
Look at a generalized else structure:

if (comparison is true)
{
}
else
{
//execute other statements
}
Lets try putting this into our le, with phpft07-02.php. (I copied over the HTML
le for the CD as well, with the only change being the form action.)
if ($a > $b)
{
echo "Your
}
else
{
echo "Both
}
if($a < $b)
{
echo "Your
}
else
{
echo "Both
}
first number ($a) is greater than your second number ($b).";
your first number ($a) and your second number ($b) are equal!.";
second number ($b) is greater than your first number ($a).";
your first number ($a) and your second number ($b) are equal!.";
This makes sense, right? If the tests are false, it echoes out that the numbers are
equal. However, we just created a couple of big problems. Try to see if you can
nd them, then check out Figure 7.4. Now it should be easier to spot the problem
within the code.
You see here that it actually gives two results! The code is going through both
structures. For the rst structure, it checks to see if $a is greater than $b. This is
not true, so it executes the else statements. Therefore, the rst text written is that
the two numbers are equal. Next, the code goes to the second if statement, where
it determines that $a is indeed bigger than $b. Because the if control structure
rings true, it executes the if statements and says that the second number is bigger
than the rst one.
Figure 7.4
Using phpft07-02.php with some errors.
Before we move on, lets see what happens when you put in two equal numbers.
The result is Figure 7.5.
Here, you can see that neither the rst if or second structure is true. Because of
this, both execute their second statements, ending up with two comments saying
that the numbers are equal. We need to x this so it only shows once and doesnt
give the wrong answer every time.
elseif
We need to gure out a way to put if statements together so we can use the else
command and not have to execute the same code twice. Fortunately, PHP
provides a control structure called elseif, which is very similar to if. It is part
of an if structure and only executes on two conditions: First, the if test needs to
fail and second, its own elseif test needs to succeed. Check out the basic structure:
if (comparison is true)
{
}
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Chapter 7
Figure 7.5
Using phpft07-02.php with equal numbers.
elseif (different comparison is true)
{
//execute other statements
}
You can add an else section to this control structure as well, which only executes
if both the if and the elseif sections fail. Lets put the two if sections together
on the page and add the else. This allows us to nally have a well-designed
structure that gives no errors.
if ($a > $b)
{
echo "Your first number ($a) is greater than your second number ($b).";
}
elseif ($a < $b)
{
echo "Your second number ($b) is greater than your first number ($a).";
}
else
{
echo "Both your first number ($a) and your second number ($b) are equal!.";
}
This structure can have only three possibilities. $a could be bigger than $b, $b
could be bigger than $a, or they could be equal. However, only one of the three
echo statements will be executed.
Caution
Take note that this page only deals with integers. If you enter a string rather than a number, you
might get some erratic results.
Note
One other branching structure is the ternary structure, which is very similar to if. . .else. You
can see some more examples with the ternary operator in Chapter 5.
switch
is excellent at comparing one variable to several possible values. switch
only works when checking to see if an input is exactly the same as a value; you
cannot run comparison tests on it. This is a great way to compare a variable
against several different known values to see if something occurs. For example,
you can see if $a equals 0 or a, but you cannot use switch to see if $a is greater
than $b. The following is the generalized structure for a switch statement:
switch
switch($variable)
{
case 0:
break;
case 1:
break;
default:
//execute statements only if none of the cases fit
break;
}
Lets quickly recreate a program we did earlier. Remember when I introduced if

control structures while designing the calculator? Lets go back to that and use
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Chapter 7
instead of if. The HTML le is the same, except the action attribute has
changed; the PHP le has changed. Check out what it now looks like. This le is
phpft07-04.php on the CD. Figure 7.6 shows you what the form page looks like.
switch
Figure 7.6
The phpft07-04.html form file.
<?php
//Put $_GET variables into our own variables
$a = $_GET[first];
$b = $_GET[second];
//Echo out the result of the chosen operation
switch ($op)
{
case +:
echo $a + $b;
break;
case -:
echo $a - $b;
break;
case *:
echo $a * $b;
break;
case /:
echo $a/$b;
break;
case %:
echo $a%$b;
break;
default:
echo "Warning: Operation Not Valid";
break;
}
?>
This replaces it all with switch, including a default value just in case the
user enters something that gives a big error. One result might look like
Figure 7.7.
You might be wondering what the break statements do. switch is designed so
that the execution of one of the commands will ood into another one. So, for
example, if we removed the breaks and did an addition problem on our calculator, we would get six results: the addition, the subtraction, the multiplication,
the division, the modulus, and the default echo. break stops this by exiting
directly out of the switch structure. As a general rule, always use a break after
each case unless there is an overbearing reason not to do so.
Its important to note that I included a default case for the switch statement, even
though it appears impossible for the operation to ever be anything other than the
given choices. However, you should always include a default clause for your
switch statement. What if the form is a GET form and the user changes the
operation through the URL? Other things can come up that may confuse your
program, so it is always better to be safe and simply use a default clause.
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Chapter 7
Figure 7.7
Loops
Sometimes, while designing a program, you need to execute a set of statements
repeatedly. You might need to display an entire set of data with hundreds of
elements or list all numbers from 1 to 100. Fortunately, PHP offers loops, which
allow you to execute a set of statements as many times as needed. There are
several different types of loops. Each type has strengths and weaknesses. You
most often nd loops with arrays, which I go over in Chapter 10.
while
Lets start off with the most common loop: while. Using the while loop, you
execute the statements as long as a certain condition is true. Remember the three
stages of the while loop:
n
Initialization outside the loop, which ensures the loop executes at least once
Condition inside the while statement
Code inside the loop, which causes it to end
Loops
Lets look at the structure:

while (condition is true)
{
//execute repeated statements
} //end of loop
You can enter whatever statements you want executed.

Caution
Be careful---you dont want to accidentally create a loop that is always true. If the statement inside
the condition test is never false, the loop will execute forever. This could occur if you write
something like while (1==1) or even while(1), because any non-zero number is always
considered true. A common error is to check some condition that never occurs, such as while
($x!=7), when the variable $x never actually becomes 7. If you do this, the loop continues
forever and the page never loads correctly.
Lets create a simple program: a counter that counts from 1 to 10 and then
displays the digits on the screen. This le is phpft07-05.php on the CD and results
in a page that looks like Figure 7.8.
<html>
<head>
<title>A counter from 1 to 10 using while</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
//give starting value to counter
$counter=1;
//increment counter from 1 to 10
while ($counter<=10)
{
echo "$counter<br />";
$counter++;
}
?>
</body>
</html>
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Chapter 7
Figure 7.8
As you can see, this program displays the numbers 1 through 10 on new lines.
This program uses the ++ operator to increase the variable each time the loop
goes through. Notice that I created the variable before the loop began. If I had
done this inside the loop, the $counter variable would continually be set to 1 at
the beginning of each iteration of the loop.
for
The for loop is very similar to while, except that you do not need to create or
increase the variable outside of the main loop statement: Everything is done
inside the beginning statement of the for loop. They are optimized for counting
situations in which you know exactly how many times you want to execute some
code. Instead, you actually dene the variable and increment it. Lets look at the
for loop structure:
for (variable assignment; comparison test; variable change)
{
}
Loops
Doesnt look too bad, huh? Put the loop in a program. We will create an HTML
form that lets the user enter any two numbers. As long as the second number is
larger than the rst, the PHP page will display all numbers from the rst to the
second number. Lets take a look at the source. The rst page is for the HTML
document:
<html>
<head>
<title>Counter of two arbitrary numbers</title>
</head>
<body>
<form name="numbers" method="get" action="phpft07-06.php">
<p>
Enter your first value:
<input type="text" name="first" />
<p>
Enter your second value:
<input type="text" name="second" />
<p>
<input type="submit" >
</form>
</body>
</html>
As you can see here, all we have to do is create two textboxes that contain
numbers. Figure 7.9 shows what the page looks like.
The next page is the PHP code:
<html>
<head>
<title>Arbitrary Counter</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
//Store variables
$a = $_GET[first];
$b = $_GET[second];
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Chapter 7
Figure 7.9
//if b is greater than a, loop through everything from a to b
if ($b > $a)
{
for ($i = $a; $i <= $b; $i++)
{
echo "$i<br />";
}
}
//b must be greater than a! Error if not.
else
{
echo "Your second number is not greater than your first number. Please enter in
new numbers.";
}
?>
</body>
</html>
Loops
Figure 7.10
This page initially tests to see if the second number is larger than the rst. If this is
true, it creates a for loop that counts through all of the numbers and displays
them, one after another. If this is false, it simply echoes out an error statement.
Figure 7.10 shows what this page looks like with the rst value being 4 and the
second being 16.
do. . .while
The do. . .while loop is almost identical to the regular while loop except for one
thing: This loop always executes at least onceeven if the condition is false. Lets
look at the structure:
do
{
} while (condition is true);
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Chapter 7
For example, if we were using while, what would happen if we wrote the following code?
$x = 10;
while($x < 10)
{
echo $x;
}
This will obviously do nothing, because $x starts off at 10. The while condition is
never true and the echo statements never execute. What if we use a do...while
loop, however?
$x = 10;
do
{
echo $x;
} while ($x < 10);
This code would simply display a counter from 1 to 10.

Note
foreach is a specialized type of loop that only works with arrays, so I go over it in Chapter 10.
break and continue

There are two rare commands that deal with loops: break and continue. You
might remember break from the switch statement: When using it, the switch
command nished and exited. The same thing happens within loops. break
causes a loop to break out of the loop immediately. continue, on the other hand,
immediately forces the loop to go back to the top and execute from the beginning, skipping the rest of the loop for that individual iteration.
chapter 8
Strings
Strings are a data type, much like integers or oating-point values, except they do
not deal with numbers. Instead, they deal with characters and words. An example
of a very basic string is a. A more complex string might be Hello, World, while a
very complex string might have symbols in it that arent even letters. They also
can contain numbers. You might want to create a string that looks something like
this: My house has 2 stories and 5 bedrooms.. Strings allow you to store numbers
as characters inside your strings, but strings with numbers inside them are not
the same as integers. Combining two strings gives you a result that is not the same
as adding two numbers, so "10"+"14" does not equal 24, but 10+14 will. Be aware
of the quotation marks around strings.
PHP, unlike other languages, has no length limit on strings. You can make them
as long or as short as you like. This is great for when you want to turn an entire
web pages source or a very long piece of text into a string.
Making Strings
There are a few methods of creating a string, and these methods are known as
different methods of syntax:
n
Single quoted
Double quoted
Heredoc
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Chapter 8
Strings
If you want to display a variable, you use the $ symbol. If you want to display a
string, you use quotation marks. However, there are two forms of quotation
marks: single and double. Both do different things, so lets go over one at a
time.
Note
I skip heredoc syntax because it is rather difficult to use. If you are interested in it, go to
www.php.net or www.maneeshsethi.com.
Single-Quoted Syntax
Single quotation marks look like one apostrophe that appears before the string
and another at the end. For example, your string might look like this:
Hello, I am a string!
As you can see, these single quotation marks designate the endpoints of a string.
You can also create a variable that holds the string:
$stringvar = Hello, I am a string!;
Displaying a string is just as easy: simply use the echo function:

echo Hello, I am a string!;
Or, if you already created it as a variable, you can do this:

echo $stringvar;
One of the cool things you can do with single-quoted strings is embed new lines
directly into the string. The new lines appear directly as you want them to.
echo Hello, I am a
string. You can see several new
lines within me. Arent they
cool?
;
As you can see here, we are echoing these new lines within the middle of the
string. We can set it up to deal with variables, also:
Making Strings
$stringvar = Hello, I am a
cool?
;
echo $stringvar;
Pretty cool, huh? See what this looks like on the web page in Figure 8.1.
Uh oh! It removed them all and simply wrote a full statement. Why is the
web page not displaying the new lines correctly? Lets check out the source in
Figure 8.2 to see what it looks like.
Well, that looks better, huh? All of the new lines are there as planned, but
for some reason, the web page comes out with all of the new lines gone. This
occurs because an HTML browser does not deal with white space; instead, it
Figure 8.1
Using new lines in a string.
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Chapter 8
Strings
Figure 8.2
Using new lines in a string and its source.
automatically removes it all. There are a couple ways to x this problem. The rst
way is to use <br /> tags and manually put them into the code. Check out how
that would look:
$stringvar = Hello, I am a <br />
string. You can see several new <br />
lines within me. Arent they <br />
cool? <br />
;
echo $stringvar;
Sure, this works ne, but it is a little tough to use. Its annoying to have to enter
<br /> every single time you need to have a new line! Fortunately, PHP offers
another way to get around this problem: a function called nl2br(). Look at the
function name and see if you can gure out what it meansthats right, it
converts new lines (nl) to (2) <br /> tags (br).
Making Strings
What does this mean? You can echo directly out your string and it will display the
new lines as intended! For example, doing something like the following displays
the text exactly how we want it:
echo Hello
I am
On
Several lines.;
Lets try adding this to our web page:

cool?
;
echo nl2br($stringvar);
Figure 8.3 shows what this ends up looking like on the web pageworking just as
we wanted it to, with all the new lines showing perfectly. Lets even take a look at
the source in Figure 8.4.
Not bad at all, eh? Now look closely at the document we just created. Sure, it has
the new lines working ne, but there is one small error. This is one of the lines:
lines within me. Aren?t they
This is what it should be instead:

Uh oh! Why did that question mark appear?

I copied and pasted the word arent from a word processor. A lot of word
processors make text look prettier by curving the apostrophes, so that instead of
making a single quote straight (), you get one that is curved (). This is a great
effect when writing documents, but in PHP, both the straight and the curved
single quotes (also called apostrophes) are recognized as different characters. This
error can occur whenever you have quotes anywhere in your page. Make sure you
dont copy from a word processor!
In fact, the curved quote mark is not recognized as a valid character in PHP.
When the PHP document gets to this quotation mark, it displays a question
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Figure 8.3
Using nl2br().
mark. So what would have happened if I had not used a curved quotation mark,
but rather a straight one? It would have been worse. PHP would have seen this
mark and assumed it was designating the end of the string. Then, it would have
seen the words after the string and unsuccessfully tried to interpret them. So,
instead, it would have given the following error:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in file.php on line 5
This is obviously much worse. There must be a way to display apostrophes within
a PHP document, right? Of course there is. PHP offers an escape sequence. Most
escape sequences are used in double-quote syntax, but the apostrophe escape
sequence is used in single-quote syntax. An escape sequence is a single character
that tells PHP that the following character is meant to be displayed in a special
way. In this case, the escape character is the backslash \. When you want to use
apostrophes in your document, use \. Lets add to what we have created. This is
our nal page, and you can nd it on the CD as phpft08-01.php.
Making Strings
Figure 8.4
The nl2br() source.
<html>
<head>
<title>Using single quote syntax</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
lines within me. Aren\t they
cool?
;
?>
</body>
</html>
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Figure 8.5
See that? The escape sequence makes it work better. Figure 8.5 shows what this
page looks like when you load it within your web browser.
Now lets talk about using variables with single-quote syntax. As you might remember, when using single quotes, you have to be careful about putting variables
into strings. Instead of simply putting the variable in, you need to join it to the rest
of the string using the dot operator (.). This is a little tricky, so pay attention.
Begin a string with a single quote and end it with a single quote. You then use the
dot operator to join the two. For example, I want to put a variable $name into a
document. I basically want the page to say "Welcome to www.maneeshsethi.com ,
$name" where $name is replaced with the users name. See how the dots join
the variablewhich is not within quotesto the stringswhich are within
quotes?
echo Welcome to maneeshsethi.com, . $name . !;
Okay, lets make an example program that does exactly this. We will have a page
into which you enter your name, and the next page welcomes you by the name
Making Strings
you entered. Lets take a look at the form rst. This page is phpft08-02.html on
the CD. See Figure 8.6.
Figure 8.6
<html>
<head>
<title>Using the dot operator</title>
</head>
<body>
<form name="nameofuser" action="phpft08-02.php" method="get">
Enter your name: <input type="text" name="username">
</form>
</body>
</html>
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Figure 8.7
We just created a form with an input value. Lets add the PHP document to that,
phpft08-02.php, then check out how it looks in Figure 8.7:
<html>
<head>
<title>Using the dot operator with a form</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
$name = $_GET[username];
echo Welcome to maneeshsethi.com, . $name . !;
Making Strings
?>
</body>
</html>
Double-Quoted Syntax
Double-quoted syntax has these differences from single-quote syntax:
n
Many more escape sequences.
The way that variables are

parsed. Parsing means
displaying variables, and double
quotes deal with the variables
in a different (and easier)
fashion.
A different way of dealing with

variables. Table 8.1 lists the
escape sequences available when
using double-quote syntax. Try
to memorize those you will use.
Table 8.1 Common Escape Sequences

Sequence
Name
\n
\r
\t
\\
\$
\"
Line feed
Carriage return
Horizontal tab
Backslash
Dollar sign
Double quote
Note
There are two other double-quote syntax escape sequences, but they deal with numbers of a
different base.
You can use variable names directly in a string simply by referring to them with a
$ symbol. If I want to refer to the variable $name within a program, this is what I
could do:
echo "My name is $name";
Pretty cool, huh? You dont need to worry at all about using the dot operator, nor
using any special symbols for your variable. You can do a few cool things with
double-quoted syntax. For example, take a look at the following script:
$stringvar = car;
echo "I want to buy six $stringvars";
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This doesnt work as we want. We want the result to say "I want to buy six cars",
but instead we get an error. PHP has a way to x this:
$stringvar = car;
echo "I want to buy six ${stringvar}s;
The trick here is to use curly braces: { and }. By using them, you can display the
variables as you want. Another way to do this is to use concatenation like we did
with the single-quote syntax. The previous example could be done like this:
$stringvar = car;
echo "I want to buy six $stringvar" . "s";
As you can see, we bypass this problem altogether by using the dot operator!
String Functions
A lot of functions can enhance a strings capabilities. One very common need is
to convert an integer into a string. This may happen when you take in an integer
from a form and need to add it to part of a string. Fortunately, there is a function
that can do this: strval(). Lets put this in a quick program. Watch what happens
if we have the user enter two numbers. The program adds them together and
combines the results of strval(). The rst page is a simple HTML page. The
following code creates a page that looks like Figure 8.8:
<html>
<head>
<title>Putting two numbers together with strval()</title>
</head>
<body>
<form name="together" action="phpft08-03.php" method="get">
Enter your first number: <input type="text" name="firstop">
<p>Enter your second number: <input type="text" name="secondop">
<p><input type="submit">
String Functions
Figure 8.8
</form>
</body>
</html>
Now, lets take a look at the PHP document:

<html>
<head>
<title>Using strval()</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
$a = $_GET[firstop];
$b = $_GET[secondop];
echo "Lets take a look at the two results of using your operators.";
echo "<p>Using the addition operator does this: ".( $a + $b);
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Figure 8.9
echo "<br>Adding the numbers using strval produces this: ". strval($a). .
strval($b);
?>
</body>
</html>
This page, with the inputs of 13 and 15, looks like Figure 8.9.
You see what this program does? In the echoing section, adding two numbers
creates an addition problem. However, using their strval() values, you get a new
sentence!
This is only one of the possible string functions, and there are several dozen
more. Some are really cool, such as substr(), which lets you search within a
string, and soundex(), which lets you nd words that have similar pronunciations. I recommend researching www.maneeshsethi.com and www.php.net to learn
some more useful techniques for strings.
chapter 9
Functions
A function is essentially a section of code that you can call over and over again.
This function can do repetitive tasks very easily and safely, and because it is
encapsulated in a function name, it makes the main program look a lot neater.
We have been using a lot of predened functions, written by PHP, such as
strval() and nl2br(). Notice how both functions have parentheses after the
name? That is a functions dening attribute. In Chapter 6 I explain that I format
my multi-word functions using an underscore. This is an example of one of my
functions:
execute_func();
Designing Your Own Functions

You might be wondering why you would ever want to design a function.
Functions allow your program to become a lot more robust and capable.
Functions make your program modular, meaning that you can use parts of your
program in other programs without worrying about problems. This means less
work for you overall. Lets take an example. Lets say I had a program that added
the numbers 1 through 10. This is how a sample program would look if I wrote it
without functions:
<?php
echo "The following counter will add up the numbers 1 through 10";
echo "<br>Please wait, your numbers are being tabulated below.";
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$runningcounter=0;
for ( $x=1; $x <= 10; $x++)
{
$runningcounter = $runningcounter + $x;
}
echo <p>Your result is . $runningcounter;
echo "<br>Thanks for using our program!";
?>
The majority of this program is taken up by the code for the running counter.
The counter also does not seem to mix well with the rest of the program
that consists solely of echo statements. The program would look like the one in
Figure 9.1.
Figure 9.1
A running counter program without using a function in phpft09-01.php.
Designing Your Own Functions
As you can see, the display looks ne. Underneath, as you saw before, the code
isnt as nice as it could be. Look at how we could make this program look a heck
of a lot better by turning the counter into a function:
<?php
echo <p>Your result is . counter_1_10();
?>
This might look a little strange. The only change is removing the code for the for
loop from the earlier program and replacing it with a function call. The call is in
the echo statement.
You can see here we changed the variable $x to counter_1_10(). Of course, this
function name by itself doesnt do anythingwe need to make it actually mean
something! I show you, very soon, how to make your functions work, but before I
do, look at another example of using functions.
If you are writing a song, you could do something like this:
<?php
verse1();
chorus();
verse2();
chorus();
verse3();
chorus();
chorus();
?>
This is a pretty common setup for a song, but notice how you are allowed to call
the same function chorus() multiple times, and in any order? Functions allow
you to do cool things like this.
Before you learn how to create this program, look at the basic structure for
dening a function. The parts you can change to suit your individual function are
in italics.
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<?php
function function_name(parameter1,parameter2,. . .)
{
function code
}
?>
Doesnt seem too difcult, does it? Function denitions are just the structure and
code of the function.
Dissecting a Function
Functions have three parts that we need to go over:
n
Function code
Parameter list
Return value
Only the code section is required; both the parameter list and the return value are
optional. However, in most functions, you will be using all three.
Function Code
The function code section is the main section located between the curly braces:
{ and }. This section deals with the functions actual work. You can add statements and expressions in this section as you would in a normal section of the
code. Often, this section of the code interacts with the parameter list in the
function declaration.
Parameter List
Parameters are variables and values that you can pass to a function when calling
it. Remember when we used the nl2br() function? This function converted new
lines in your code to <br> tags, taking the string that had new lines in it as a
parameter. You pass parameters inside the parentheses when you call the function, and the function can then use the parameters to act upon it.
In using the nl2br() function, you might create a string and send it to the
function like this:
<?php
$stringvar = Hello
I am a string
that has new lines inside
of it;
?>
In this example, the variable $stringvar acts as a parameter and is passed to the
nl2br() function. However, notice that the result is echoed by the echo construct.
You create a result from a function by using a return value. Many functions use a
return value if they produce a result.
Return Value
Return values are the opposite of parameters. When you use a parameter, you are
sending data to the function to be acted upon. A return value is data sent from the
function to the program that called it. The program uses the result to go on with
its actions. In the case of nl2br(), the return value was the new string. In the case
of the program we wrote, the return value is as follows:
Hello <br />
I am a string <br />
that has new lines inside <br />
of it;
This result is then echoed out by the echo statement. This causes the display in
Figure 9.2. Because of the functions return value, the echo statement is able to do
its job and display the proper code.
Lets take a look at the web page we created earlier in this chapter. In that program,
we created a running counter to display the value of the sum of all numbers
between 1 and 10. By removing the counter and replacing it with a variable, we
made the program a lot easier on the eyes: The coding section was exported into a
function, and the main section was executed with a function call. We still need to
declare and display that function on the screen, however. Take a look at how the
full program looks with the main sections code and the functions code in place:
<?php
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Figure 9.2
Using a return value in a function.
function counter_1_10()
{
$runningcounter=0;
for ( $x=1; $x <= 10; $x++)
{
}
return $runningcounter;
}
?>
The program has expanded a little bit, huh? Well, it has, but the expansion has
caused it to be a lot cleaner. The new function takes care of all the code and you
can concentrate only on the main program to see what is going on.
The function here is dened as counter_1_10() and it does the same thing as the
running counter we developed earlier. The only difference is that it also uses a
return value near the end of the script. The following line makes the return magic
happen:
The variable $runningcounter contains the sum that we have been looking for
throughout the function. We return the value back to where it was called up in
the echo statement in the main program. The value of the returned data (in this
case, 55) is substituted for the function call, and the echo statement echoes out
the correct result. The web page looks like the one in Figure 9.3.
Hey, that looks a lot like Figure 9.1! Actually, they are identical. If you are
writing code and you get the feeling that you should copy and paste some code
from earlier in your script, that is a perfect time to use a function! A function just
Figure 9.3
Using a return value in phpft09-03.php.
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splits up the section where the code occurs to make the program make more
sense.
This may seem pointless. Why split it up if all it does is make the program a little
longer? Well, for one, the program is cleaner when using functions. However, the
real power in using functions comes when you combine return values with
parameters and make the functions more exible.
Lets rewrite this program to deal with an HTML page, allowing input from
the user. The user can enter a lower value and an upper value, and the program
will add all numbers between the two and show the result. Lets start off by
looking at the HTML page, shown in Figure 9.4. Its similar to ones we have seen
in the past.
Figure 9.4
Designing the form in phpft09-03.html.
<html>
<head>
<title>Using parameters on a running number counter</title>
</head>
<body>
Enter your first number: <input type="text" name="firstop">
<p>Enter your second number: <input type="text" name="secondop">
</form>
</body>
</html>
Now display the result of the two numbers in the following PHP document:
<html>
<head>
<title>Using a running counter with functions</title>
</head>
<body>
This page is designed to add up all the numbers between the numbers you provided.
<br>Please wait, your numbers are being tabulated below.
<?php
$first = $_GET[firstop];
$second = $_GET[secondop];
if ($second > $first) //if the second number is larger than the first, execute
the program as it should run
{
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echo <p>Your result is . running_counter($first,$second);

}
else //the second number is not larger than the first, error
{
echo "<p><font color=\"red\"> Your second number is not larger than the first
number, please fix and try again.</font>";
}
function running_counter($first,$second)
{
$runningcounter=0;
for ( $x=$first; $x <= $second; $x++)
{
}
}
?>
</body>
</html>
Pretty tricky, huh? This has been our most complex program so far, and it is one
of the coolest. This function lets you nd the sum of any two arbitrary numbers
using a simple for loop. Check out Figure 9.5. The gure shows the result using
the numbers 13 and 314. The result, as shown, is the sum of every number
between 13 and 314. Doing this by hand would take forever!
The program has a basic body, utilizing the main section only to access the
variables and echo results. The function it calls takes in two parameters, $rst
and $second, and uses these parameters to return a sum. This function could be
used in any program that needs the sum of all digits between two numbers.
Figure 9.5
The sum in phpft09-03.php.
Notice that we called the function with variables $rst and $second, and the
function used variables of the same name. This is not required. We can pass
whatever parameters we want into the function, and the values that we pass are
copied into the variable names of the function declaration. We could have chosen
simply to pass $_GET[rstop] and $_GET[secondop] rather than ever turning
them into the scalar variables $rst and $second, for example. We converted the
$_GET variables because they are a lot easier to handle without the bracketed array
syntax and because their names are more intuitive.
The real strength of using functions comes from their portability. Because a
function can be written so that it does not rely on any variables from the program, you can simply lift that function right out of this script and use it on
another. If you ever write another program that requires a counter, you can use
this same function without modication. In fact, a lot of programmers take all of
their commonly used functions and build a library le with them. Then,
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whenever they need to perform a task, they simply load up the library le and call
the already written function.
Of course, not all functions are portable because of something called variable
scope. When using variables, the program can only access a subset of the variables
that are created. For example, if you have a variable $test_var in function DoA(),
another function DoB() cannot access that $test_var unless the variable is
passed as a parameter to DoB(). Some arrays that are predened by the language,
such as $_GET and $_POST, are global to all functions. However, for functions you
develop on your own, be careful to make sure you only access and use variables in
scope.
For the mathematically minded
If you look at the program we created, you can see its a pretty ugly way to get a sum of all the
numbers between arbitrary endpoints. We use a mechanism that actually loops through each
value and adds it to a running counter. A few mathematical functions will produce the correct
result without the ugly loops. This means that for very large sums, this program could take a
while.
To get the sum from this series, there is a cool mathematical formula: sum. This is how it appears:
S(n) = n/2 * (a(1) + a(n) ), where n is the total of numbers you want to add together, a(1) is the
first number in the series, and a(n) is the final number in the series. If you want to find the sum of
the first four members of the series we wrote, you would get this: S(4) = 4/2 * (1 + 7) = 16. If you
use this formula in your running calculation, the answer will be achieved much more quickly.
So whats the point? Just because a solution works doesnt mean it is the fastest or best way to
do something. Sometimes things can go much faster if you find a better algorithm.
Calling a Function Depending on a Condition

Sometimes you need to call a function depending on a condition. Youll often
need to write more than one function in a program. We dont need to call all of
them in every run, but we may need to call a few depending on the situation.
One of the best examples is when you need to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit or
vice versa: a degree-conversion calculator. The rst thing to do is design the
HTML page. This is going to be complex because it gives the user lots of options
to convert. Lets take a look at the HTML le it takes to produce this. You can
nd this on the CD as phpft09-04.html.

<html>
<head>
<title>A Degree Calculator</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This script will convert one degree measurement to another.
<p>Enter your first number: <input type="text" name="firstdeg">
<select name="firsttype">
<option value="celsius">Celsius
<option value="fahrenheit">Fahrenheit
</select>
<p>Choose what you would like the degree to be converted to:
<select name="secondtype">
<option value="celsius">Celsius
<option value="fahrenheit">Fahrenheit
</select>
</form>
</body>
</html>
This page looks like Figure 9.6.

You might be wondering why we allow the user to choose what he converts the
degree measurement to. Why not automatically choose to convert to Fahrenheit
if she selects Fahrenheit? This allows for expandability. If you want to let the user
convert to a different degree measurement, such as Kelvin, you can easily add this
without changing the HTML page very much.
The PHP for this page is very complex and involves a lot of functions. Lets go
through the major parts one at a time. The rst section involves setting up the
HTML and synchronizing the variables.
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Figure 9.6
Conversion form in phpft09-04.html.

<html>
<head>
<title>Conversions of degrees</title>
</head>
<body>
We are going to convert your value as you requested. Please wait.<p>
<?php
$a = $_GET[firstdeg];
$firstdeg = $_GET[firsttype];
$seconddeg = $_GET[secondtype];
This section creates the page and sets up some basic variables for the remainder of
the program. We use the $_GET[] array to take in the users input from the
previous page. Next, we need to deal with these variables.
//DECLARE CONDITIONS
if ($firstdeg == celsius && $seconddeg == fahrenheit)
{
echo "The conversion of $a degrees $firstdeg to $seconddeg is " .
celsius_to_fahrenheit($a) . ".";
}
else if ($firstdeg == fahrenheit && $seconddeg == celsius)
{
echo "The conversion of $a degrees $firstdeg to $seconddeg is " .
fahrenheit_to_celsius($a) . ".";
}
else //if they are both the same
{
echo "Error, you are converting a degree to the same measurement.
Please change one and try again. ";
}
This part of the program handles the echoing out of the results of the function
calls. In addition, it actually goes about interpolating the function calls between
the echoed strings. Look carefully at the strings to see how the quotation marks
and function calls work to make the string become a valid sentence.
The nal section of the program is a listing of the functions that do the programs
work:
function celsius_to_fahrenheit($a)
{
return ((9/5)*$a + 32);
}
function fahrenheit_to_celsius($a)
{
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Figure 9.7
Conversion in phpft09-04.php.
return (5.0/9.0)*($a-32);
}
?>
</body>
</html>
Pretty simple, huh? Check out Figure 9.7 to see what this page looks like. These
two functions return the values requested by the echo calls. Their return values
come from the Celsius and Fahrenheit conversion formulas, easily found in any
science textbook. Together, all the parts of this PHP program create a very cool
result, a form that can accept user input and deal with whatever numbers it gets.
All in all, its not bad for just a short time of learning, huh?
chapter 10
Arrays
You already learned a little about arrays, those pesky little sets of variables, and in
this chapter, we are going to review what we already know and learn a lot more
about them. Arrays are very useful in PHP programming, and you will nd them
in probably every advanced program you see. When using a form to submit a
value, the variables are stored in an array, which is passed along to the new page.
This array is used for calculations and data recall.
PHP documentation explains an array as an ordered map that has a set of keys
that each has a value. You create the keys in the array; keys are names that
reference the individual items in an array. Sometimes a set of consecutive
numbers is used, and other times a set of strings is used. Because all elements of
an array have the same name, you need some way to keep them separate. For
example, when using the $_GET[] array, the key was whatever was in the brackets.
For example, the $_GET[fullname] key was fullname. Often, the key is a
number, so you can have a set of arrays from 0 to 10 looking like $array[0] to
$array[10].
Arrays are particularly strong if you use integers with them and want to initialize
a large number of values. for loops can do this very easily, using a for loop to set
each individual element of an array. Arrays and loops are natural companions.
Creating an Array
To create an array, you need several elements.
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array() Language Construct

Use the array()language construct, which is very similar to a function. You call
array() and the return value is equal to the new array. Therefore, whatever
variable you set as equal to the result of array()becomes an array. For example,
take a look at the following:
$newarray = array();
Your new array will be stored in the variable $newarray. Of course, the problem
we have now is that this array is blank! We have to create items in the array.
Before we do this, let me show you how to reference items in an array.
Reference Items
Array items have two parts: a key and a value. A key is basically the location of the
variable, and the value is what is stored at that location. Think of a golf course. In
this case, the hole you are on is the key (118), and your score on the hole is
the value. You can then look for a specic hole and see what your score was.
Similarly, if you make a reference to a variable in your array with a valid key, a
value at that location is returned. The key in this type of problem is stored within
brackets attached to the end of the variables name. Here is a simple structure:
$newarray[key] = value;
If you substitute your wanted values, you create an array element.

Lets look at a simple program, whose results are shown in Figure 10.1. This is
phpft10-01.php. This program simply creates ve array values and echoes them
on the screen.
<?php
$newarray = array();
$newarray[1]
$newarray[2]
$newarray[3]
$newarray[4]
$newarray[5]
=
=
=
=
=
"First item";
"Second item";
"Third item";
"Fourth item";
"Fifth item";
echo $newarray[1];
echo $newarray[2];
echo $newarray[3];
Creating Array Elements

echo $newarray[4];
echo $newarray[5];
?>
Thats not too difcult, huh? Creating an array just requires you to reference it
using the proper syntax and set the items equal to their values.
Figure 10.1
Creating array elements in phpft10-01.php.
Creating Array Elements

Now, in a case like earlier, you already knew what all the variables were going to
equal. PHP offers a great way to create your array elements at the same time as
creating arrays. This requires the => operator, and the array declaration is done at
the time array() is called. Look at the basic structure:
$newarray = array(key => value, key => value, . . .)
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As you can see, we are calling array() with a list of parameters. You can create as
many keys as you want, and all of them will be part of $newarray.
Lets rewrite the program using this new syntax. This is phpft10-02.php and you
can nd it on the CD. In addition to changing the preceding programs syntax, I
added <br /> tags to make it cleaner.
<?php
$newarray = array(1 => "First item", 2 => "Second item", 3 => "Third item", 4
=> "Fourth item", 5 => "Fifth item" );
echo
echo
echo
echo
echo
$newarray[1]
$newarray[2]
$newarray[3]
$newarray[4]
$newarray[5]
.
.
.
.
.
<br
<br
<br
<br
<br
/>
/>
/>
/>
/>
;
;
;
;
;
?>
The results are shown in Figure 10.2. Pretty cool, huh? A lot less work if you
already know the variable names.
Defining Arrays with PHP

Im going to show you a couple cool tricks you can use for dening arrays like
this.
Notice that this type of array uses a consecutive list of integers. When using
strings or nonconsecutive integers, these tricks wont work, but when using
similar lists these tricks are great.
Skip the Array Key Definition

The rst trick is to skip dening the array key. When you begin dening the array
with the short syntax and skip the "key" => part (using only a list of values), you
get an array with integer indices starting at 0. For example, say you did this:
$testarray = array(a,b,c,d,e);
You get an array with these elements:

$testarray[0]=a;
$testarray[1]=b;

$testarray[2]=c;
$testarray[3]=d;
$testarray[4]=e;
Figure 10.2
Creating array elements in phpft10-01.php.
The declarations are identical. Note that because we start counting with 0, a veelement array ends at array key 4.
If you want to do this without using short syntax, there is a method for that
also:
$testarray = array();
$testarray[]=a;
$testarray[]=b;
$testarray[]=c;
$testarray[]=d;
$testarray[]=e;
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Figure 10.3
Creating array elements without keys in phpft10-03.php.
In this case, we just leave the key absolutely blank, and it assigns the next integer
value to the array. Lets take a look at an example. The following is code from
phpft10-03.php and it appears onscreen like Figure 10.3.
<?php
$newarray = array("January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June",
"July"
, "August", "September", "October" , "November", "December");
echo
echo
echo
echo
echo
echo
echo
$newarray[0]
$newarray[1]
$newarray[2]
$newarray[3]
$newarray[4]
$newarray[5]
$newarray[6]
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
<br
<br
<br
<br
<br
<br
<br
/>
/>
/>
/>
/>
/>
/>
;
;
;
;
;
;
;

echo
echo
echo
echo
echo
?>
$newarray[7] . <br /> ;

Note that in this case, the months started with 0 and ended with 12. Many times
in programs it is easier to think of calendar months as 112, rather than 011. If
you do this, you should probably create a blank month at month 0 and start
January off at array element 1.
Numeric indices for your array are really useful when you are going to loop
through all of the data and manipulate them. For example, in the golf example at
the beginning of the chapter, we stored the hole number as the key and the score
on that hole as a value. If we loop through all the holes from 118, we would get
the nal full score! String indices are better for describing what is stored in the
array, such as with $_GET[] arrays. You have string describers, so it is easier to see
what is stored in each element.
Use a Loop
Now there is one more trick involved with basic array creation and display.
Notice how hard it is to type out all those echo statements? Wouldnt it be easier
if you could loop through the array and display them all?
There is a special type of loop that does this, but it is more powerful and we will
be going over it later on in this chapter. For now, lets use a basic for loop to
make this program a lot easier to write. The following code is from phpft10-04.
Check out Figure 10.4, which shows what this array looks like on the screen.
<?php
"July"
, "August", "September", "October" , "November", "December");
for ($i = 0; $i <= 11; $i++)
{
echo $newarray[$i] . <br /> ;
}
?>
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Figure 10.4
Creating array elements with a for loop phpft10-04.php.
See how this program works? A for loop goes through all the indices and
elements of an array, and displays them on the screen. Its a lot easier than
actually writing out each element manually.
Working with Arrays

The following functions let you use arrays in various ways throughout your
program.
unset() Function
When you are done working with array values, sometimes it is nice to get rid of
them altogether. You might need to use them again later in the program, and
want to reuse the keys without worrying about overwriting data. PHP offers the
Working with Arrays
Figure 10.5
Before using unset().
function to get rid of old array values (or, for that matter, old arrays).
The function unset() works by only unsetting exactly the parameter you pass to
it. Unsetting an array is useful for memory management.
unset()
If you want to create an array with ve values, you could write something like the
following, which ends up looking like Figure 10.5:
<?php
$newarray[]=0;
$newarray[]=1;
$newarray[]=2;
$newarray[]=3;
$newarray[]=4;
echo $newarray[0];
echo $newarray[1];
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echo $newarray[2];
echo $newarray[3];
echo $newarray[4];
?>
Now, lets use unset() on this program:

<?php
$newarray[]=0;
$newarray[]=1;
$newarray[]=2;
$newarray[]=3;
$newarray[]=4;
unset($newarray[2]);
unset($newarray[3]);
echo
echo
echo
echo
echo
$newarray[0];
$newarray[1];
$newarray[2];
$newarray[3];
$newarray[4];
?>
All we did here was add a couple of lines on unsetting some array items. The
result is in Figure 10.6.
If this program gives you an error, that means that your server has its restrictions
set very high. This error arises when you try to echo out unset variables. However,
this means it is working correctlyan error should occur if your server has strict
settings.
This page can be found in phpft10-05.php on the CD. As you see, simply the act
of unsetting the variables made trying to echo them impossible, because they did
not exist. You couldve gone one step further, however, and eliminated the entire
array by doing this:
unset($newarray);
Working with Arrays
Figure 10.6
After using unset() in phpft10-05.php.
foreach Loop
The foreach loop is designed distinctly for working with arrays, and if you know
how to use it, you can do many more things with arrays. foreach lets you choose
any array that you have designed and independently loop through every
single item in the array. This is great if you have developed an array of an
unknown amount of items and simply want to display the arrays contents as soon
as possible.
The foreach loop has two separate structures, both of which you can use at any
time. The rst structure looks like this:
foreach ($arrayname as $valuename)
{
//perform statements
}
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Take a look at that! I just created a new loop that goes through every single one of
the loops elements and allows me to access each one. The value $arrayname is the
name of the array, and $valuename is an arbitrary variable that is assigned to each
individual value of the loop in each iteration.
Lets see how we might use this. Lets go back to the web page we made earlier,
phpft10-03.php. In this script, we developed a page that would display each
month of the year. We used a dozen echo commands to display each one.
However, using the foreach loop, we could do this much quickermore
quickly, in fact, than a basic for loop like the one we developed in phpft1004.php. Check out Figure 10.7 and look at the code that would do this. This page
is phpft10-05.php on the CD.
<html>
<head>
<title>Using a foreach loop</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
"July", "August", "September", "October" , "November", "December");
$variablecounter = 1;
foreach ($newarray as $month)
{
echo "We have iterated through the loop $variablecounter times ==> ";
echo $month . <br />;
$variablecounter++;
}
?>
</body>
</html>
Working with Arrays
Figure 10.7
Using the foreach loop in phpft10-05.php.
Hey, pretty cool, huh? We developed the same item and used a variable counter
to actually count the number of times we looped through. The counter increments itself each time the loop is iterated, so we see the number of times that
every command occurs. This is a lot easier than using the basic for loop, huh?
Lets take a look at the other possible structure you can use for dening foreach
loops in your programs:
foreach ($arrayname as $keyname ==> $valuename)
{
//perform statements
}
A little different declaration. The only major difference here is that we added
$keyname; now we can gure out the keys as well as the values. This structure is
great for using with forms.
Lets see a sample. We could develop a form that has several optional items. It can
then display the keys and values to help understand which elds were lled in and
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which the user decided to leave blank. Create a sample form. The following code
comes from phpft10-06.html:
<html>
<head>
<title>Using a form with foreach</title>
</head>
<body>
<form name="sampleform" action="phpft10-06.php" method="get">
<h2>Please enter in the following information. All fields are optional. </h2>
Name: <input type="text" name="name">
<br>Address: <input type="text" name="address">
<p>Phone number:
<br><input type="text" name="phone">
<br>I prefer a) <input type="radio" name="prefer" value="cheese">Cheese
<br>b) <input type="radio" name="prefer" value="bread">Bread
<br>c) <input type="radio" name="prefer" value="meat">Meat
</form>
</body>
</html>
This page creates a nice-looking form with radio buttons. Check out what this
page looks like in Figure 10.8.
Lets look at the PHP section of phpft10-06.php, which displays the results using
PHP:
<html>
<head>
<title>Using a foreach loop with forms</title>
</head>
<body>
Working with Arrays
Figure 10.8
Creating a form for phpft10-06.html.
<?php
$counter = 1;
foreach($_GET as $keyvalue => $realvalue)
{
echo "Loop has iterated $counter times: ";
echo "Key: $keyvalue has value: $realvalue" . <p> ;
$counter++;
}
?>
</body>
</html>
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Figure 10.9
Displaying results in phpft10-06.php.
This ends up looking like Figure 10.9.

Whoa, look at that. The page displays the proper results by showing the key value
and the real value of each element in the $_GET array. Remember that the $_GET
array actually is a predened container that holds all of the elements submitted
through the GET method on a form. When we used the form on the last page, we
sent all the information through GET to the new page. This page then took that
data and looped through each element of the array, displaying the key value and
the real value on the screen. With that, we got the results we wanted!
This program properly reports the value of every eld of every form with a GET
method. This form is not tied to a specic form, and you can use any HTML page
to reference this PHP page, and it will display all the elements of your GET array.
This is useful to check for errors. Pretty cool, huh?
chapter 11
Advanced Forms
Weve been using forms in almost every chapter so far in this book, and now it is
time to learn more about what they can do. We have only been using basic forms
so far, such as those with textboxes and a submit button or a selection box. In this
chapter we take a closer look at web forms and see how PHP can make them very
strong. I start by discussing some more-advanced HTML form elements, and
then discuss the ways to use the forms in PHP to make your pages more robust.
Advanced Elements
Get readyI go over a lot of different form elements in this chapter.
Radio Buttons
Radio buttons are organized into groups: Only one in a group of radio buttons
can be selected. Use the <input> tag with the type set to radio (the same way that
you do with a checkbox). However, you need to add one more parameter in
addition to type and name: value. This parameter becomes the value of the $_GET
or $_POST array that you access through PHP. For items of the same group, all of
their name parameters are identical. This becomes the key of the GET or POST array.
Its important to note that a key/value pair is only sent if at least one of the radio
buttons is selected. For this reason, if you decide to not make one of the radio
buttons checked by default, make sure that the array key is set. If you dont test
this, the user can simply skip the radio button section, creating an error when you
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try to access the radio button. You can ensure that at least one button was
checked by using the $isset() function.
Figure 11.1
A sample set of radio buttons.
You might want to create a page that asks the user where he lives. This can be
done with a simple set of checkboxes, like the ones that are in Figure 11.1.
As you can see in the gure, only one item is selected: the West (because Im from
California). If you click another, the West radio button clears and the other is
selected. Lets look at the HTML code that makes this page possible:
<body>
Please enter your location
<form action="something.php" method="post">
<br /><input type="radio" name="location" value="west">The West
<br /><input type="radio" name="location" value"northwest">The Northwest
<br /><input type="radio" name="location" value"southwest">The Southwest
<br /><input type="radio" name="location" value"south">The South
Advanced Elements
<br
<br
<br
<br
/><input
/><input
/><input
/><input
type="radio"
type="radio"
type="radio"
type="radio"
name="location"
name="location"
name="location"
name="location"
value"northeast">The Northeast
value"east">The East
value"midwest">The Midwest
value"south">The South
</form>
</body>
Notice how all of the buttons have the same name? That is because this parameter
denes which group they are in. If you had changed half of them to have a
different name, you could select two items, one from each group. Figure 11.2
shows how this would happen if I had changed this into two groups. As you can
see, two buttons have been selected. That is because the items have a different
value for name. In Figure 11.2, all I did was change the name of the second group.
Figure 11.2
Splitting the radio buttons into two groups.
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Password Fields
A password eld is very simple. It looks identical to a textbox, except that the
characters are coded, or hidden, from view. They look like asterisks or dots,
depending on your browser. A password box is most commonly used when you
want the user to be able to log into your site and is often used in conjunction with
a username eld. When typing in a password box, you get a result that looks like
Figure 11.3. The code for this page follows.
<body>
Please enter in your username and password to log in.
<form action="something.php" method="post">
<p>Username:<input type="text" name="username">
<p>Password:<input type="password" name="password">
</form>
</body>
Figure 11.3
Using a password box.
Using PHP and Forms

Caution
A password box does not secure or encrypt the data in any way, so it is possible the information
could be stolen.
Remember to use the POST method on your form. GET sends the data through the
address bar, and it is very easy to steal the data just by looking at the URL. POST
hides this data from the link. If you send data through POST, make sure you use
the $_POST array to access data.
Note
I go over file selectors, another important HTML element, in Chapter 14.
Hidden Fields
Another type you might want to learn about is the hidden eld. No user can see
it, but a hidden eld can pass data through forms. You can use the hidden eld to
keep necessary data alive through all of your pages in a simple manner. You can
make a hidden eld like follows:
<input name="hiddenfield" type="hidden" value="whateverValueYouWant" />
Using PHP and Forms

So far we have looked at the basics of entering items on a form and submitting it
to another page that utilizes PHP and deals with the inputs. However, you may
not want to have to submit the information to another page. In cases like this you
can have the PHP form submit the data to itself: The same page that loads takes in
the data and uses it for calculations. This can be useful when you want the users
input to change the page onscreen.
I have used this myself when developing a web site. On one page, the user was
allowed to enter a code to make the item cheaper. I didnt want the page to submit
the code data to another page, because that would require multiple pages with
almost entirely identical content. Instead, I developed only one page that dealt with
the data if the coupon code was submitted, but hid the PHP if the code was skipped.
The rst thing I needed to do was develop a form. In most cases, the form
submits the data to another page using the action attribute, but in this case we
did not have the benet of having another page to submit the information.
Fortunately, there is a predened variable that contains the address of the page
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from where it is called. This is part of the predened array $_SERVER and the
complete variable name is $_SERVER[PHP_SELF]. By setting the action attribute
of the <form> tag to this location, the form sent the data to the same page and
interacted upon it. The form declaration looked something like this:
<form name="couponcode" action="<?php $_SERVER[PHP_SELF] ?>" method="get">
//rest of form here
</form>
Note
There is an easier way to do this, if you remember from earlier chapters. By leaving out the action
attribute altogether, the form will call itself automatically. However, I wanted to demonstrate some
cool interpolation and array variables, so we will continue with $_SERVER[PHP_SELF] for this
example.
Check out the action attribute. This wants to use the PHP_SELF variable, but the
problem is that HTML itself does not know what the variable means! Only PHP
uses this predened variable, so we need to escape into PHP before using the
array variable. This is done using <?php and ?>.
Now that we have created the basic level of the form, we need to add a textbox
that allows the user to enter a coupon code. The textbox is very simple and allows
regular letters and numbers.
Please enter in your coupon code <input type="text" name="couponcode" />
This creates the basic coupon code outline in which the user can type the code
and press the submit button. If we wrote the form correctly, the page should
simply refresh. We have created a form whose action is itself, but has no data to
pass on and no way to interact with that data.
We need to write some actual PHP to handle anything that might come up. To
do this, we are going to add the code before the form. The code we need to write
might look something like the following:
<?php
$code = $_GET[couponcode];
echo "You entered the coupon code " . $code;
?>
Using PHP and Forms
Figure 11.4
Beginning to use a coupon code.
Lets put this code together. The result is shown in Figure 11.4. You can nd this
le on the CD as phpft11-01.php. This looks pretty normal, right? As soon as
you submit the data, the coupon code appears. However, what happens if you
dont submit something? What happens if you just load the page? Check out
Figure 11.5.
Uh oh. In this case, it just left the document blank. That is because the PHP code
will always display the text "You entered the coupon code", whether or not there is
a code to show. Lets x this problem. We need to add some data to make the text
show only when a code has actually been submitted. Our page will probably end
up looking like the following, the way it does in phpft11-02.php:
<html>
<body>
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Figure 11.5
Using the code without submitting the form.
<?php
if (empty($code)){
?>
<form name=.couponcode. action="<?php $_SERVER[PHP_SELF] ?>"
method="get">
Please enter in your coupon code <input type=.text. name="couponcode" />
<?php
}
else
{
echo "You entered the coupon code $code";
}
?>
Using PHP and Forms

</form>
</body>
</html>
Now check out what happens when you load up the page. See Figure 11.6.
Figure 11.6
The coupon code form in phpft11-02.php without data.
All right! If you want to have a form submit data to the same page, so that any
input is reected on itself, this is how you do it!
We used kind of a cool trick. When using conditional statements in PHP, anything between the condition is executed only if the condition is true. That means
that after the test if, the HTML form is only shown if the empty condition is true.
Even though we exited PHP using the ?> symbol, the if statement still stands:
Anything inside is only executed if the statement is true. Also, we used a new
function: empty(). This function is true is the variable is blank, and has no data
inside of it.
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By the way, in most cases with items like this, you only want the code to change
the page if it is identical to a predened number. Most codes are useless if they
just write themselves on the same page.
To do a comparison, just compare the code to a predened number. If they
match, change the page as you like. Look at phpft11-03.php, which is on the CD:
<body>
<form name="code" action="<?php echo $_SERVER[PHP_SELF]; ?>" method="get">
<p>For the purposes of this page, the code is 31413. Try entering in this number
and other numbers.
<p>Please enter in your coupon code: <input type="text" name="couponcode" />
<p>
<?php
if ($code == 31413)
{
echo "<font color=red>Congratulations, you have the code!</font><p>";
}
?>
</form>
</body>
For this page, we moved the PHP section down near the end, after the input
button. We set the variable so that if $code equals the specic constant we are
looking for, a special text value is echoed to the screen. If the value is incorrect,
the statement is never echoed. Check out what the page looks like in Figure 11.7.

If you wish to send email through an HTML form, a very simple method is to use
the mail() function built into PHP. Mail() gives the ability to send out a very
basic email with a to address lled in. In addition, you can have a subject and a
message inside the email. Lets look at a basic email declaration.
Figure 11.7
Changing the code in phpft11-03.php.
Notice that it seems like you cannot choose to change who the message is from.
Actually, you can. Just choose one of these methods:
n
Dene it manually within the $additionalheaders variable.
Go into your php.ini le from your PHP installation and congure the from
address directly in the le.
Because the web server is handling part of the sending, the from option on the
email will be from the web server.
Note
The web server is not actually sending the email. PHP uses an external program to send mail. In
most cases, this function wont work after installing on Windows, unless you do some extra
configuration. You can find out more about how to configure your server for sending email on
www.php.net or www.maneeshsethi.com.
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We are going to create one basic form that lets you enter a message, a subject, and
a from and to address. We will put that into a PHP mailer and let the le email
something to whomever the user chooses. Lets start off by designing the form
document. This le is located in phpft11-04.html on the CD.
<html>
<head>
<title>PHP Email</title>
</head>
<body>
<form name="email" action=phpft11-04.php method="post">
<p>Please fill out the form to send an email.
<p>Enter your email address: <input type="text" name="from"> Enter recipients
email address: <input type="text" name="to">
<p>Enter subject: <input type="text" name="subject">
<p>Enter your message:<br> <textarea name="message" rows=10 cols=40>
</textarea>
<p><input type="submit"> <input type="reset">
</form>
</body>
</html>
This is a pretty simple page, right? You can see what it looks like in Figure 11.8.
If you thought this was simple, look at the PHP code you send it in
phpft11-04.php:
<?php
$to
$subject
$message
$headers
=
=
=
=
$_POST[to];
$_POST[subject];
$_POST[message];
From: . $_GET[from] . "\r\n" .
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);

?>
Figure 11.8
The mail form in phpft11-04.html.
This page takes in all the necessary prerequisites for sending out an email and
organizes them into a mail() function. Look closely at the $headers section: Be
careful with that. The $from variable has to be formulated in a special way: From:
emailaddress.. The extra \r\n allows you to later add headers, such as Reply-To.
By doing this, we have now sent out an email to whoever is in the $to textbox!
Pretty cool, huh?
You can use this on your web sites if you want to give the user a way to email you.
I have a very similar script set up on my web site, which allows users to subscribe
to my forum by way of email. You can probably think of many more uses for
email technology.
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chapter 12
Cookies
PHP has many functions and abilities for web sites. One of these capabilities is to
create and use cookies. You may have heard of cookies while using your web
browser. A cookie is a text le stored on the users machine. This text le has a
data value, which stores some small amount of data. You just load this text le as
a variable on pages that use the cookie, and that is your stored data! The text le is
stored, in a hidden spot, by your web browser.
Basically, a cookie is a way for a site to save some data on your computer.
This can be good and bad. For example, a lot of spyware sites use cookies to
keep track of where you visit and use this data to sell ads to you. Also, make sure
you dont overdo it: A lot of people dont like a lot of cookies because it can
seem like you are storing data about them. On the other hand, using cookies
allows you to choose and have those choices reected on the site every time you
use it.
This might seem vague, so let me give an example. Say you have a site where
the user enters her name. This name might be reected in many parts of the
site, such as on the top of every page and in printable sections and documents.
It is a little annoying to have to reenter her name every time the user enters
the site, so adding cookies is a great way to make things a little easier. The
Internet, as a whole, does not save data, so the developers of PHP came up with
cookies.
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Cookies
Creating Cookies
Set cookies using the setcookie() function. This function has a lot of parameters.
setcookie($name, [$value, $expire, $path, $domain, $secure])
What do those brackets ([]) in the function declaration mean? Take a look at the
setcookie() function. When a parameter is enclosed by brackets in a declaration
like this, the parameters are optional. If you would prefer to leave them as they
are by default, you can do that. In addition, be careful when dening only some
of the default values. If you want to change the $secure parameter, but not the
$path parameter, you still have to set $path. This is because you can only set
the parameters from left to rightyou cannot skip any. You must set $name rst,
$value second, $expire third, and so on. If you want to set one of the later
parameters, you can set the earlier ones to their default value.
$name
The rst parameter of setcookie() is $name. This is the name of the cookie, and
you will use this to reference it in the future. In fact, the cookie eventually
becomes part of an array called $_COOKIE, so if you want to reference a cookie,
you would do it by calling the array like this:
$_COOKIE[name];
As you can see, the name eventually becomes its key for the array that it is a
part of.
$value
The functions second parameter is $value. If you want the cookie to be of any
real use, you need to give it a value. You can reference the cookie later, get
the value back, and use this value to affect your web site. In the example at the
beginning of the chapter, we talked about creating a cookie that had a value of the
visitors name. We would store the value using the $value parameter. We could
then pull this value back later, and use it to reference the visitors name
throughout the web site.
$expire
is the rst complex parameter, because it isnt part of the basic nameand-value entity. Instead, it refers to the amount of time, in seconds, that the
$expire
Creating Cookies
cookie should remain on the server. By default, if you leave the $expire parameter blank, the cookie disappears as soon as the visitor closes his browser. By
setting $expire, you can make the cookie last a lot longer.
Having a cookie run for the default amount of timeuntil the browser closes
is rarely useful in practice. If you were designing the page that remembers the
users name, it would be ridiculous for it only to remember the name for one
session. Using the $expire attribute allows the cookie to last for a meaningful
length of time. However, in pages where you only want the cookie to last
throughout the current use of the browser, you can use the cookie without the
$expire attribute.
To set the time, we need a new function: time(). For the technical minded, this
function returns the number of seconds since the epoch (which is an arbitrary
point in time; most computers use January 1, 1970 as the epoch), but you can just
think of it as returning what time it is now. You set $expire to the value of time()
plus the number of seconds you want the function to expire in.
Lets see how we could dene the time. We need the function to expire in a set
period of days or weeks. We can use the following $expire code:
$expire = time() + 60 * 60 * 24 * 30
Assuming we created the variables correctly earlier, this is identical to the

following:
$expire = time() + $secondsPerMinute * $minutesPerHour * $hoursPerDay *
$daysPerMonth;
Hmm, so what does this do? Remember that time() returns the current time in
seconds. We want to add the number of seconds we want the cookie to endure to
the current time. If we forget to add time(), the cookie will have expired several
decades ago, making it worthless.
Here are some cool examples of time. This isnt actual PHP code, but it demonstrates how you can use time().
15 seconds = time() + 15;
30 minutes = time() 60 * 30
5 hours = time() * 60 * 60 * 5
10 days = time() * 60 * 60 * 24 * 10
Now that we have added the current time, we want to add the amount of time the
cookie should last. Using multiplication like this makes it a lot easier to
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understand. The rst 60 is measured in seconds/minute, times 60 minutes/hour,

times 24 hours/day, times 30 days. This will result in a cookie that expires after
30 days. If we wanted to change it so that the cookie expired after two weeks,
we could do something like this:
$name = "samplecookie";
$value= "samplevalue";
$expire= time() + 60 * 60 * 24 * 14; //expire in 2 weeks
setcookie($name, $value, $expire);
This creates a cookie with the key samplecookie and the value samplevalue to
expire after 14 days.
The following setcookie() parameters are optional. You can use them when you
want your cookies to work in specic cases or be stored in specic locations.
$path
The $path variable lets you choose the path of the web server on which the cookie
will be valid. The default value is the directory that the le is in. You can make the
cookie valid for all the pages in your web server by setting $path to /. If you set it
to /somefolder/images, the cookie only works in the images folder of somefolder.
Make sure you set the correct path so you can use your cookies in all the pages
you want for your site.
$domain
$domain is most often used when you have a web site with several subdomains. A
subdomain is a site that is a part of the original site, but whose URL is separated
by a period. For example, maneeshsethi.com is the original site. I might create
a subdomain such as subdomain.maneeshsethi.com. The actual domain is
maneeshsethi.com, and the subdomain is subdomain.maneeshsethi.com. One
trick here is to remember that www.maneeshsethi.com is considered a subdomain
of maneeshsethi.com. Even the www makes the site into a subdomain.
refers to the domain for which the cookie is valid. In most cases, you
want it to be valid for your entire web site. This is common when you have a site
that people might visit at website.com and at www.website.com. Because
www.website.com is considered a subdomain, make sure that the cookie is valid
for both options.
$domain
Creating Cookies
To make the cookie valid to all subdomains, make the cookie set to .website.com,
with a period before the name. This causes all subdomains to recognize the
cookie. If you want only www.website.com to accept the cookie, use www.website.
com as your $domain.
$secure
The $secure parameter indicates that the cookie should only work over a secure
HTTPS connection. We have not gone over HTTPS for this book, so it will not
work if you set this Boolean parameter to true. However, if you ever learn how to
use HTTPS on your own, this is how you would enable it for your cookies.
Common Problems
Many people have some difculty dening a cookie. Lets look at some of these
problems.
n
The web script in the PHP document does not recognize the cookie. Cookies
are not usable until the web page has been refreshed, so if you try to use
a cookie on the same page where you created the cookie, the cookie will
not work. In cases like these, simply use the value you assigned to the
cookie to the areas where the value was going to be used.
The web browser accessing the document has disallowed cookies on the
page. This causes a problem creating a cookie and throws out any you create.
Double-check that your page will work well without cookies if a user wants
to use the page without them.
Sometimes, developers try to create a cookie that has no value. That is

ne, but make sure you set the value to " (no value), not false. Using
the Boolean false creates a cookie that automatically deletes itself. Use a
regular cookie and leave the value blank. A cookie with no value could
let your PHP script know that the user has visited there before, sort
of as a place mark.
Cookies change the HTTP header, so you cannot put the setCookie function
that denes and deletes cookies after any HTML code. Make sure your
cookie code goes before the HTML header.
If you double-check, your pages should be ne.
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Now it is time to put your knowledge into action. We are going to develop a
couple pages with cookies, starting off with the one described earlier, which
allows the user to enter a name on the form, which the web page remembers for a
long period of time. The rst thing we need to do is develop an HTML document. This HTML form allows the user to enter his name. From there, we will
develop a couple of PHP forms that display the users name.
<html>
<head>
<title>Developing a page with cookies</title>
</head>
<body>
Please enter your name into the following text box and hit submit. Note that if
you have entered in a name in the past few weeks, that name will be deleted with
the new one.
<p>
<form name="cookie" action="phpft12-01.php" method="post">
Enter your name here:
<input type="text" name="name" />
<p>
<input type="submit" />
</form>
</body>
</html>
This is a very simple page, with just an input textbox. The page ends up looking
like Figure 12.1. You can see this le on the CD as phpft12-01.html.
Lets enter a name in that box. You press submit, and what do you get? Nothing
yet, because we still need to design the PHP page. Lets do that now. We want this
PHP acceptor to do a couple of things:
n
It should conrm whether a cookie has been created recently. If it has,

then we need to delete that cookie and reset it with the new value. If not,
it simply needs to create the new cookie.

n
It should direct the user to a new page, which shows the cookie results. If
the cookie is valid, it will say the users name; if invalid, the page will say
that a cookie has not been set.
Figure 12.1
The PHP page is a little complex, so lets go through it one step at a time. Then,
we will look it over all at once so you can see how everything ows. The rst part
of the script tests to see if the user left the eld from the form page blank or did
not access the PHP page through the form:
<?php
$cookievalue = $_POST[name];
//if cookievalue is blank, end the page
if ($cookievalue == )
{
echo "You did not submit a cookie value. Please go back to
<a href=\"phpft12-01.html\"> phpft12-01.html</a> and correct this error.";
exit;
}
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This section assigns the value of the form to the variable $cookievalue. It then
tests to make sure $cookievalue has a value. If it is blank, a statement is echoed
referring the user to go back to the form page and submit the form.
Note the following statement: exit. It uses a language construct exit. This
construct should be used if there is an errorit halts execution of the PHP script
in the web page and causes the page to skip over any further PHP. When you have
an error such as this one, you can use exit to tell the browser that an error has
occurred.
Its important to note that some PHP programmers prefer that you never use
because it breaks the ow of the program. If you want the web page to
completely load whether or not there is an error, you should not use exit(). The
best time to use exit() is when the error is fatal, and you do not want the
program to continue to execute without it.
exit(),
After this section, we have another that checks to see if a cookie has been set
recently, depending on the cookie length:
//If the cookie has been set recently
if (isset($_COOKIE[name]))
{
setCookie("name", "", time()-1);
unset($_COOKIE[name]);
}
Here, we use two new functions to see if a cookie has been created. isset() returns
true if its parameter (in this case, the name cookie) has been set. If the cookie was
set, we delete the cookie by resetting it to expire in the past, and then we use the
unset() function to delete the cookie from the $_COOKIES array. Why do we reset
the cookie with the setCookie() function? We have to redene the cookie to delete
it, because no function directly deletes it. Instead, we use the setCookie() function
to delete it by creating a cookie with the same name that expires in the past
(time()-1). The cookie is automatically deleted by the web browser.
The last step is to create the cookie:
//Whether or not the cookie was set earlier, set this cookie.
setcookie("name", $cookievalue, time() + 60 * 60 * 24 * 12);
echo "Cookie has been set, please visit
<a href=\"phpft12-01result.php\">phpft12-01result.php</a> to see the result.";
?>
Figure 12.2
An error with the phpft12-02.php le.
We set the cookie to last 12 days by giving it an expire time of time() + 60 * 60 *

24 * 12, and we set the value to the name that was submitted on the form.
Remember that you are creating stored bits of data that exist for a set amount of
time, so the amount of time we use for the cookies is the time the cookie will exist.
Now, we put this in the web document after the <body> tag, and the script should
execute awlessly, right? Check out what happens when we do this by looking at
Figure 12.2.
Uh oh. We got an error! What happened? When creating cookies, you have to put
the cookie before any HTML tag. Cookies are part of a special part of the
document which is dealt with before even the <html> tag. You need to set them
before even the opening <html> tag. If you have any <!DOCTYPE> or <meta> tags,
the cookie must go before these, also. This means that you cannot create a cookie
after any executed echo statement in your program.
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By rearranging the document so it looks like the following, we can get a better
result:
<?php
$cookievalue = $_POST[name];
//if cookievalue is blank, end the page
if ($cookievalue == )
{
echo "You did not submit a cookie value. Please go back to
<a href=\"phpft12-01.html\"> phpft12-01.html</a> and correct this error.";
exit;
}
//If the cookie has been set recently
if (isset($_COOKIE[name]))
{
unset($_COOKIE[name]);
}
//Whether or not the cookie was set earlier, set this cookie.
setcookie("name", $cookievalue, time() + 60 * 60 * 24 * 12);
echo "Cookie has been set, please visit <a href=\"phpft12-01result.php\">
phpft12-01result.php</a> to see the result.";
?>
<html>
<head>
<title>Creating the cookie</title>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
We moved the PHP code above the <html> section. Notice that the body is
empty. This doesnt matter: The cookie will still set and everything will work ne.
Figure 12.3 shows the result.
Now all we have to do is create a simple PHP page that echoes out the cookie.
This isnt too bad at all. Check out the following source from phpft12-01result.
php on the CD:
Figure 12.3
Finally setting a cookie in phpft12-01.php.

<html>
<head>
<title>Displaying the cookie</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
$cookievalue = $_COOKIE[name];
//if the cookie is blank or does not exist, echo an error
if ($cookievalue == ")
{
echo "You have not created the cookie yet? Go to
<a href=\"phpft12-01.html\">phpft12-01.html</a> to set a cookie.";
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exit;
}
else
{
echo "Welcome back to the page, $cookievalue. Feel free to change your
cookie by visiting <a href=\"phpft12-01.html\">phpft12-01.html</a>.";
}
?>
</body>
</html>
This page simply echoes an error if the cookie does not exist and displays the
persons name if it does exist.
Lets see the three pages in succession. Figure 12.4 shows how a person can enter
his name, Figure 12.5 shows the result of entering a name, and Figure 12.6 shows
the nal results.
Figure 12.4
Step one: entering your name.
Figure 12.5
Step two: creating the cookie.
Figure 12.6
Step three: the results.
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Check that out! Three steps to set a complete cookie and display it on one
page.
I have an exercise for you: Rewrite these PHP pages so that it does all three
of these steps on one page. Make one page display a form, set the cookie, and
echo the result out if it exists. This is a pretty tough job, but I bet you are up
to it!
chapter 13
Sessions
As you learned in Chapter 12, cookies allow you to save a small le, on the users
computer, that recorded some data in a variable. However, there are a few
problems with saving data inside cookies for use in all your sites pages:
n
Cookies are stored on the users computer. This means that the user can
go into the cookie le and edit the text to change the results of a page.
Cookies are not super reliable. They can be turned off, deleted, and edited
by hand, so you have to worry about what a knowledgeable user can do
with cookies you create.
A lot of Internet viewers dont like cookies, because they can track down
visitors locations and use them for advertising purposes. In fact, a lot
of people on the Internet hate cookies for this reason, and they do not
allow them altogether.
Because of all of these reasons, PHP created a completely new interface whenever
you want to remember user data. This new interface is called a session. Sessions are
very similar to cookies because they are another method of storing variables for use
on a web site. However, there are several important differences between the two:
n
Sessions store the variables on the server. This means that the user cannot
edit any of the data that his computer uses because he cannot access it.
In other words, sessions are a lot safer than cookies overall.
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n
Sessions
Sessions cannot have an expiration time: They always expire as soon as

the browser closes. Because no le is saved to the users computer, the
session variables simply lose their point of reference when the browser
closes, and cannot be used anymore. Of course, you can nd ways to get
around this, but in most cases ending the session immediately is better
for both the server and the user.
Sessions are a great way for implementing a username/password system on your

website, and this chapter will discuss how to do that. We will also go over some
other sample programs for which sessions are suited. Lets get started now.
Using Sessions
To start a session, you only need to use one function: session_start(). It
automatically checks to see if a session is already running on your browser and, if
not, assigns a new session ID. If a session is already running, it joins that session
and uses it on the current page. A session ID is simply a sequence of numbers
assigned to your computer when you start a session. Each computer gets a
different session ID; it helps the web server keep track of who is doing what on
the web site and inside the session.
must be placed before any other echoed HTML or test. This is
exactly the same thing that happened with setcookie() in Chapter 12. Because
sessions deal with the document header, the function pertaining to them must be
placed right at the beginning. Figure 13.1 shows what happens if session_
start() is placed after some text is echoed to the screen.
session_start()
The code that produced this error is very short:

There will be an error below!
<?php
session_start();
?>
We entered There will be an error below on the screen. However, because we

wrote anything on the screen, we got the following error:
session_start(): Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent
Why did we get this error? Sessions have to start in the header of a document,
before anything at all is written on the screen. After the rst piece of text or the
Using Sessions
Figure 13.1
Producing an error with session_start().
rst HTML tag (including <html>) is written, the server header section is over,
and session_start can no longer begin.
Starting a Session
Lets try changing the code just a little bit. The result is shown in Figure 13.2.
<?php
session_start();
?>
Will there be an error above?
There is no error at all. Make sure that session_start() appears before any other
text or HTML tags.
header("Cache-control: private");
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Figure 13.2
Fixing the error with session_start().
We have started our session, so whats next? Lets try making a page similar to the
one we made in Chapter 12, where the user can enter her name and have the page
display the name onscreen. We will use sessions rather than cookies to achieve
this, however.
Designing a Form Page

First of all, we need to design a form page. We are going to use a form identical
to the one we made last chapter, which looks like Figure 13.3. Check out
Chapter 12s code listing on the CD as phpft13-01.html or download the source
from www.maneeshsethi.com.
Developing a Basic PHP Page

Now that we have a form set up, its time to actually put our session to work! Lets
start off by developing a basic PHP page that saves the users name to a variable
that crosses different pages.
Using Sessions
Figure 13.3
Our new page starts with the introductory section:

<?php
session_start();
header("Cache-control:private");
Note that the form passed the name of the user using the POST method.
Now we need to assign a session variable to contain the value of the name that it
passes. In other chapters you have seen the $_POST array, the $_GET array, and the
$_COOKIE array. All of these valid arrays apply to their type of data. Take a guess
what the session array is. You guessed it: $_SESSION.
We actually get to dene the elements of the $_SESSION array ourselves. In the
$_POST and $_GET arrays, the web server or the previous form sends the data to us,
through the arrays. With $_SESSION, there is no data to download; instead, we
create the array ourselves.
We are going to add an element to the array that lets us transfer some data across
the session. We are going to create an element which stores the users name. The
following code fragment shows you how:
$_SESSION[name] = $_POST[name];
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Not too bad at all, eh? All we did was create a new element of the $_SESSION array
and assign it to the form posted value of the $_POST array. By doing this, we have
created a variable that persists throughout the session on any page that we use
session_start() on. Basically, that is all we need to transfer the data. Lets add a
text eld just for good measure:
echo "Thanks for visiting the page {$_POST[name]}.
Your name has been added to the session variable list!
Visit <a href=\"phpft13-01result.php\" >phpft13-01result.php</a>
to see the result!"
?>
And now we have completely designed the page. Check out Figure 13.4 for the
result. As you can see, we have added the session variable to the session list.
Figure 13.4
Using Sessions
Figure 13.5
The source of the phpft13-01.php file.
We then displayed the correct message, and set the user up to look at the next
page, which holds his variable. Look at the source in Figure 13.5. The PHP
server translated that PHP code we wrote into simply a line of text with a link
(<a href>). Not bad at all.
So now we have only one page left. Check out what this page looks like in
Figure 13.6. Following is the code for the phpft13-01result le, which uses the
stored session data to print the users name:
<?php
session_start();
echo "Thanks for visiting our site, $_SESSION[name]. If your name appears in
this document, sessions work correctly!";
?>
While we are at it, lets update the phpft13-01result.php le. We are going to
have the le display all the session data it can handle. PHP has a bunch of
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Figure 13.6
The phpft13-01result.php file.
functions for dealing with session data, and we are going to go over some of
them now.
PHP Functions for Session Data

Sessions are great tools for passing variables on your web site, but there is a
possible problem. You can get into trouble if two scripts use variables of the
same name. When Programmer A develops his web page, he creates a form
where the user can enter his information to ship an item. He calls this session
variable $name. Programmer B, who is an amateur PHP developer, decides to
create a page in which $name tracks the users name. Well, if a visitor goes to the
page developed by Programmer A, and then he goes to the second page developed by Programmer B, the $name variable is tracked and perhaps unchangeable.
This can be a problem because we dont want both users getting mixed up
without letting the user know that there was a mixup.
The Errored Pages

Before we go over the x, lets develop a couple problem pages. The rst page has
a basic form for entering your email address.
<html>
<head>
<title>A form demonstrating session name problems</title>
</head>
<body>
<form action="phpft13-02.php" method="get">
Please enter your email address: <input type="text" name="address">
</form>
</body>
</html>
Pretty run of the milla form with a submit button, like you see in Figure 13.7.
Figure 13.7
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We are going to have it go to another simple web page that displays the email
address after assigning it to a session. Here is another very simplistic web page,
phpft13-02.php, which starts a session and assigns a session variable. See the
result in Figure 13.8.
<?php
session_start();
$_SESSION[address] = $_GET[address];
echo "Thanks for visiting the page with the email address
{$_SESSION[address]}. Your name has been added to the session variable list!
Now, if everything is working correctly, this session variable should NOT work
on <a href=\"phpft13-02other.php\">phpft13-02other.php</a>"
?>
Figure 13.8
Okay, we got the expected result. Very good so far. Now here is the rub: We want
to make a new page that uses an $address variable from another form. Assume
the form has been created and that the user bypassed the form and opened the
PHP document. In cases like this, the $address variable should be blank, right?
Because we created a session with the variable, $address is passed along. Lets
check out this error-lled document. It is on the CD as phpft13-02other.php.
<?php
session_start();
$address = $_SESSION[address];
if ($address != )
{
echo "Uh oh, there is an error. \$address is registered.";
}
else
{
echo "Great! \$address is unregistered as a session variable!";
}
?>
The Fix
This is a little different from what you have seen before, huh? We created an
if. . .else section that tests to see whether the variable $address exists. The rst
test checks to make sure that $address is not blank. If it is not blank, then there is
an errorthe variable has carried through. If it is blank, then the session variable
has not carried through and it works correctly.
Lets see what happens when you go to this page through your browser after
creating a session variable from the earlier le. Check out the result in Figure 13.9.
Uh oh! I got an error because the variable is registered. This is the problem we were
expecting, and now we need to gure out a way to x it.
Fortunately, the x is simple: When dealing with sessions, each session has a
session name. Any script that uses session_start() gets a default session name,
and the script uses this session name to carry variables from page to page. However, if we want to differentiate two pages, we can create a new session name for
the scripts, causing the variables not to carry through.
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Figure 13.9
The phpft13-02other.php file.
Changing the session name is very simple. All you need to do is use the
session_name() variable. Include a parameter of the name you wish to assign it,
and there you go! One step to create a new session name. Note that the
session_name() function must be placed before session_start(). You should
use it at the beginning of your document, probably as the rst line.
Lets rewrite the page to x the problem. All we need to do is change the session
name, and it should work.
<?php
session_name("testname");
session_start();
$address = $_SESSION[address];
if ($address != )

{
echo "Uh oh, there is an error. \$address is registered.";
}
else
{
echo "Great! \$address is unregistered as a session variable!";
echo "<p>Our session name is " . session_name();
}
?>
This le is phpft13-03.php on the CD. Check out how it looks in Figure 13.10.
Hey, check that out! The PHP document echoes the correct text because the new
session name causes the session variable $address to be forgotten.
At the bottom of this script, I included an echo call that tells the current session
name. If you use the session_name() function without any parameters, it returns
Figure 13.10
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the current session name rather than applying a new session name. That is why
this line echoed out the correct session name into the document:
echo "<p>Our session name is " . session_name();
All right, so now we know how to differentiate between sessions. This is a great
way to allow different types of scripts on your pages without confusing the
variables and getting them all mixed up.
Creating a Web Page Counter

Okay, lets try something new. Now that you know about basic session variables,
lets create a web page counter. This counter will recognize how many times a
visitor has visited your page and display the number on the screen. The counter
starts at 0 when the page is closed.
Developing a counter requires just a little PHP. We will open a session and
reference the counter (which creates the variable if it doesnt exist, or increments
it if it does exist). The following code fragment is taken from phpft13-04.php:
<?php
session_name("counter");
session_start();
$_SESSION[counter]++;
echo "Hey, welcome to this web page. While you are here, feel free to browse
some other sites. Just make sure you come back!. Hey, you might as well check
out <a href=\"http://www.maneeshsethi.com\"> ManeeshSethi.com </a> while you
are here!";
echo "<p>We will keep a record of how many times you come back!";
echo "<p><p><div align=\"center\">
You have visited our page {$_SESSION[counter]} times.";
?>
This is kind of strange, but all of the real power comes from this line:
Creating a Web Page Counter
This line creates the counter variable if it does not exist, and it increments it by 1
using the ++ operator if it does exist. Then, we echo out the session counter at the
bottom of the page. This tells the visitor how many times she has visited the site.
When she leaves the page, the session remains open. If the user returns, the
counter still increments correctly.
Lets see what happens. First of all, you open the session, as shown in
Figure 13.11.
Figure 13.11
Now we are going to navigate away from the PHP page. We might go to the
indicated site (www.maneeshsethi.com). Figure 13.12 shows how the PHP page has
disappeared and has been replaced with ManeeshSethi.com.
Now go back to the PHP le. We cannot just press the browsers Back button,
because we wont rerun the PHP script that way. Instead, we are going to access
the correct le using the address bar. Type in the PHP les location and check
out the result in Figure 13.13. Check it out! The counter continues to update the
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Figure 13.12
Navigating away from the PHP file.
Figure 13.13
Returning to phpft13-04.php.
Developing a Log-In Page
number even if the page has been changed! In Figure 13.11, you see a 5, and after
leaving and coming back, the counter says 6.
If you want to keep the counter running even when the session ends, you could
assign the value of the session variable to a cookie, and load the cookie every time
the page runs. Why dont you try doing that as an exercise? We will come back to
that program at the end of the chapter and create a running counter that tracks
the visitor at all times. For right now, we are going to create a log-in page.

Lets develop a web page that lets the user log in and log out. You have probably
seen pages like this before: when you shop, post in forums, or bank online.
Username and password forms are ubiquitous and very important, so it is a good
thing to learn. In this section you learn the basics: a simple user/pass combination with different text strings for each user. You develop the user/pass script
without any record-keeping abilities. (Remember that a password box is the same
as a text box, except it disguises the entry with asterisks.)
The best way to create a user/pass section is to use a database. You can create new
users by adding information into the database. To read about databases, I
recommend A Guide to SQL by Philip J. Pratt and Mary Z. Last or A Guide to
MySQL by Pratt (Course).
We are going to add two user accounts directly into our web page. The rst user
account will have the username test and the password test. The second user will
have the username maneesh and the password password. First, we develop an
HTML document that allows the visitor to log in. The following code is taken
from phpft13-05.html and its results are in Figure 13.14:
<html>
<head>
<title>Logging in using sessions</title>
</head>
<body>
<div align="center">Welcome to our session script. Please enter in your
username and password.
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<p>
<form name="session" action="phpft13-05.php" method="post">
Username:
<input type="text" name="user" />
<p>
Password;
<input type="password" name="pass" />
<p>
<input type="submit" />
</form>
</div>
<p><p>
Use these values if you do not have your own account.
<br>test/test
<br>maneesh/password
</body>
</html>
Figure 13.14
Hey, not bad looking. We have created a simple log-in form and told the user
some of the options he can choose. So far, so good.
Before we move forward, I want to talk about the structure of our log-in PHP
section. We have already created a form that allows the user to log in. The next
page is going to be a little different than the form handlers we used in other
chapters. Usually, we take in the information from the form and immediately act
upon it or display it on the new PHP page. However, with a log-in form, we need
to use one page to validate the user and conrm whether the information is
correct. That means that the rst page the form submits to simply checks the
username and password. If they match one of the accounts, then it will register
some variables for the account and move to another page that acts upon those
variables. If the account is invalid, it displays an error and asks the user to log in
again. Lets see the code for this PHP section:
<?php
session_name("login");
session_start();
$user=$_POST[user];
$pass=$_POST[pass];
//if the username/pass is blank, error
if ($user == || $pass == )
{
echo "ERROR: You must fill in both the username field and the password field.
Please push back on your browser and try again.";
exit;
}
if ($user==test && $pass==test)
{
$_SESSION[name]="test";
header("Location: http://" . $_SERVER[HTTP_HOST]
. rtrim(dirname($_SERVER[PHP_SELF]), /\\)
. "/" . "phpft13-05loggedin.php");
echo "Thank you for logging in test. You are being redirected to your account.";
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}
elseif ($user==maneesh && $pass==password)
{
$_SESSION[name]="maneesh";
echo "Thank you for logging in, Maneesh. You are being redirected to your
account.";
}
else
{
echo "You have entered in an incorrect combination of username and password.
Please try again.";
exit;
}
?>
Thats pretty long! This page does a lot of complex things. The rst few lines of
code initiate the session and assign the username and password to local variables.
After doing this basic, introductory stuff, the script begins to handle whatever
was in the form.
The rst if clause deals with a blank username or password eld:
//if the username/pass is blank, error
if ($user == || $pass == )
{
echo "ERROR: You must fill in both the username field and the password
field. Please push back on your browser and try again.";
exit;
}
Here, the $user and the $pass variables are checked. If either is blank, then an
error has occurred. Note that || means or, so we are testing whether $user is
blank or if $pass is blank. Figure 13.15 shows what happens if you leave one of the
elds blank.
Figure 13.15
Leaving a field blank in the phpft13-05.php file.
The next if clause begins a series of ifs and else. . .ifs that work together to
conrm whether the correct user has entered the information. The rst test begins
by checking if the user is the test user. The following is the snippet that tests:
if ($user==test && $pass==test)
{
$_SESSION[name]="test";
echo "Thank you for logging in test. You are being redirected to your account.";
}
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The test begins by checking to see if the visitor entered test as both the username
and the password (&& means and). If so, it begins by creating a new session variable:
name. We pass it as a session variable and then must write a function that changes
the users location to a new page to deal with the information and the new variables.
To change the users URL, we use header(). This function changes some sections
of a documents header. In our case, we want the user to visit a new page if he logs
in correctly. Therefore, we changed the headers Location attribute. You might
have noticed how complex the header variable is. In fact, if we want to send the
user to an absolute web site, such as www.cnn.com, the location header makes a lot
more sense. This is how we would send a user to cnn.com:
header("Location: http://www.cnn.com");
However, header() only works with absolute web sitesyou cannot send the
user to a relative path such as newpage.html. You would have to send the user to
http://localhost/newpage.html. Because you dont always have an absolute
location of a web pages location, using an absolute header can be a real pain.
Fortunately, several variables can create an absolute header out of a relative one.
Take a look at the preceding code. We take http:// and append the variable
$_SERVER[HTTP_HOST] to it. This variable is the beginning part of your domain,
such as maneeshsethi.com or localhost. We then append a pretty complex section to this: rtrim(dirname($_SERVER[PHP_SELF]), /\\). We have seen the
$_SERVER[PHP_SELF] variable before, which is the les identical location. The
two functions that act upon it, rtrim() and dirname(), delete the self location and
return to the previous folder. For example, if we were passing http://localhost/
~user/php/text.html, using rtrim() and dirname() would result in ~user/php.
We append ~user/php to the earlier section and get http://localhost/~user/
php. The last step is to add the document we want the user to go to. Do this by
adding a / and the lename.
All right! We have redirected a user to a new location. Our last step is to echo out
some text telling the user that we are redirecting his location:
echo "Thank you for logging in test. You are being redirected to your
account.";
The header() function is very quick, and in most cases the user wont even notice
this text. However, if he has a particularly slow Internet connection, he may see
this page. Figure 13.16 shows what this page looks like.
Figure 13.16
The phpft13-05.php file after logging in as test.
The programs next section does the same thing if the user logs in as maneesh. The
only difference is that the passed $_SESSION[name] variable is maneesh rather
than test.
The last section of the if. . .else clause is executed only if the user enters an
incorrect username and password:
else
{
echo "You have entered in an incorrect combination of username and password.
Please try again.";
exit;
}
This section simply echoes out an error if either the username or password is
incorrect, but both have been lled. The result looks like Figure 13.17.
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Figure 13.17
The phpft13-05.php file after logging in with an incorrect username or password.
We need to create a simple page that recognizes the user depending on the session
variable. We do this in phpft13-05loggedin.php, which takes the session variables, which were created by logging in to the account, and reects them on the
nal page. Check out the following code listing to see how it works:
<?php
session_name("login");
session_start();
$name = $_SESSION[name];
echo "Hey, $name! You have logged into the site. We will be doing a lot more
with this web page later, but right now, this is all we have done. Hope you
like it!";
?>
Cookie Exercise
This isnt too difcult, eh? We just created a page that echoes out the users logged
in name. Check out how it looks in Figure 13.18.
All right, we have created a complete login script! Granted, it doesnt do much,
but we can make it a lot better when we save les to the server (which you learn
about in Chapter 14).
Figure 13.18
The phpft13-05loggedin.php page.
Cookie Exercise
Before leaving this chapter, lets go over the exercise regarding using cookies
and a session in conjunction with each other to create a counter that always
updates itself, even after the session has been ended and the browser has been
closed. We are going to do this exercise by adding and updating a cookie every
time the user visits the site. The following code answers this problem. Take a look
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and see if you can understand it all the way through without looking at the
explanation.
<?php
session_name("counter");
session_start();
$_SESSION[counter] = $_COOKIE[counter];
setcookie("counter", $_SESSION[counter], time()+ 60 * 60 * 24 * 30);
echo "Hey, welcome to this web page. While you are here, feel free to browse
some other sites. Just make sure you come back!. Hey, you might as well check
out <a href=\"http://www.maneeshsethi.com\"> ManeeshSethi.com </a> while you
are here!";
echo "<p>We will keep a record of how many times you come back!";
echo "<p><p><div align=\"center\">You have visited our page
{$_SESSION[counter]} times.";
?>
This page uses cookies and sessions in conjunction to create a counter that
remembers how many times you have visited the site even after you close the
page! The page begins by setting up the session and assigning a session variable to
the cookie variable. If the cookie variable does not exist, the session variable is
assigned to 0. You might be wondering how the variable knows how to set the
cookie variable to 0. If the variable does not exist, it automatically has a value of 0.
This line performs that feat:
$_SESSION[counter] = $_COOKIE[counter];
The next line increments the $_SESSION[counter] variable, updating the

counter. Use this value for all future calculations in the script; it has the most
updated counter value.
Next is the main line: It sets the cookie that recalls the value every time we load
the page. The cookie has several important parameters, so take a look at the line
of code:
setcookie("counter", $_SESSION[counter], time()+ 60 * 60 * 24 * 30);
Cookie Exercise
Figure 13.19
The phpft13-06.php counter page.
The rst parameter is the cookie name. We used it in one of the earlier assigning
lines of code. The second parameter is the cookie value. Notice that was the
counters $_SESSION value rather than the cookie value. This is because we
updated the $_SESSION value very recently, and the $_COOKIE value has not been
updated. If we assigned the cookie with the same value of $_COOKIE, the web page
would never update itself. In other words, the cookie would remain at 1 forever.
The last parameter refers to how long the cookie will last. We set it for 60 * 60 *
which can also be read as simply 30 days. After that time, the cookie
disappears and the counter resets. You can change the expire time.
24 * 30,
The last few lines of code simply echo out the number of times the counter has
been echoed. Check out what this page looks like in Figure 13.19.
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This is the last chapter of the book, and we are going to be going out with a bang.
In this chapter, Im going to teach you how to deal with les in PHP. We will
now be able to accept uploads, write to les, save information, and do other cool
stuff.
You might be thinking that this is exactly the same as cookies. Yeah, with cookies
you can save some information about a user. However, you could only save
a specic type of data; with le handling, you can save whatever information
you like to the server. You can also let the user upload les directly to the server.
File handling allows uploads and enables you to write to les on the users
computer.
Allowing File Uploads

You want a way for readers to communicate with you through your web site.
This is commonly done through email, but sometimes the visitor may want to
send somethinga picture or a music le, perhaps. PHP allows you to upload a
le through a form and send it to the web server. Lets take a look at how to do
this.
Remember that when using forms you can choose either GET or POST. PHP le
uploading works best with POST.
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HTML Program
Ive created the form that allows for selecting a le. This one allows you to select a
le from anywhere on your computer, and then it creates a submit button that
lets the visitor send the le through the browser. Check out the code that makes
this happen, then look at Figure 14.1.
Figure 14.1
The file upload input form.
<html>
<head>
<title>Upload Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<form action="phpft14-01.php" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input type="hidden" name="MAX_FILE_SIZE" value="30000" >

Please select file to upload: <input name="filename" type="file" >
<br><input type="submit">
</form>
</body>
</html>
enctype
Notice that the form has several familiar parts, such as method and action, but
there is something special: enctype. What is this? enctype stands for encoding
type, and it tells the PHP server that the form is going to send something other
than regular text and eld data. Instead, it sends a data le called form-data.
input
Another weird thing is the rst input inside the form, with type being set to
hidden. This input parameter denes the les maximum size. Right now, it is set
to 30,000 bytes. You can adjust this to any value you like by altering the value
parameter. Just make sure that the name of this input eld is MAX_FILE_SIZE.
It is important you use MAX_FILE_SIZE. It prevents any uploaded le from being
over the specied size. Someone can try to upload gigantic les that can use up
your le space or server bandwidth. If someone has malicious intent, he can use
le-uploading forms in what is called a denial-of-service (DoS) attack.
Browse
Lastly, because it is a le-upload form, the last eld has a type of le, which
creates a Browse button that lets the user select a le to upload. A box pops up
like the one in Figure 14.2 when you press the Browse button.
Writing the HTML page that sends the le to the server is the easy part. Lets
make the PHP program to write it permanently to the server!
PHP Program
Take a look at the PHP you need to deal with le uploads.
Arrays
When submitting a le through a form, the server creates an array that holds the
uploaded les. Remember when we used sessions and had the $_SESSION array?
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Figure 14.2
The file-upload dialog box on a file-upload field.
Its a lot like that. The $_FILES array stores ve pieces of information about the
uploaded data. These data are stored in multidimensional arrays:
n
The rst dimension is the name of the input eld from the form on the
previous page. (In the preceding example the eld name was lename.)
The second dimension is the name of the information eld.
Table 14.1 lists the ve options. You wont use all of these, but keep in mind that
you have the option to use any of them whenever necessary.
move_uploaded_file()
When a le is uploaded to your server, it is placed in a temporary directory.

This directory is a standard temporary directory, unless you change the
upload_tmp_dir in the php.ini le. You generally dont need to change the
Table 14.1 The $_FILES Array

Array
Description
$_FILES[lename][name]
Stores the name of the original file from the senders computer.
This is the MIME file type, defined by the browser. video/
mpeg is an example. Figure 14.3 shows www.iana.org/
assignments/media-types, where you can find out more.
The uploaded files size in bytes.
When uploaded, a file is given a name on the server. This field
stores the name of the temporary file. The file is quickly moved
and no longer temporary after the full action is complete.
This is the error code, if any, associated with the uploaded file.
$_FILES[lename][type]
$_FILES[lename][size]
$_FILES[lename] [tmp_name]
$_FILES[lename][error]
Figure 14.3
The MIME-type web site.
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temporary directory. We need to move the le from the temporary directory to

a directory of our choice. To do this, we can use a PHP function called
move_uploaded_le(). The declaration for this function follows:
move_uploaded_file($filename, $destination)
Both $filename and $destination are strings that hold the path and name of the
le.
To use this function, we use the $FILES[lename][tmp_name] data in the
array as the beginning $lename and the name of the original le as the nal
destination. Lets make this happen. First of all, we need to dene the folder on
the server where the le will be located. We can then tag on the lename to get the
les full $destination. Lets look at how this might be done:
$destinationdirectory = C:\PHP\uploads\\; //Can be any directory on the
server
$destination = $updirectory . basename($_FILES[file][name]);
This makes sense, right? We just created a string, $uple, as the nal $destination.
You might have noticed this new function, $basename(). This function removes
any directory structure from a lename and returns the actual lename. So, if
you were to input basename(C:\windows\desktop\index.html), the function
would return index.html as a string.
Note
This program only works if you have your directory set to read/write by anyone. If you are using a
UNIX server, you must chmod the final directory to 777. Otherwise, make sure anyone has read/
write privileges on the directory.
Now that we have this string created, we can use the move_uploaded_le()
function! Two cool things to note:
n
If you use this function and it returns an error (for whatever reason),
the function returns a Boolean false; if it is successful, it returns true.
Youll notice the new function print_r(), which prints out all the
information about an array in one command.
Put it all together to make our nal document:

<?
$updirectory = "c:\php\uploads\\"; //Can be any directory on the server
$upfile = $updirectory . basename($_FILES[file][name]);
echo $upfile;
echo "<pre>";
if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES[file][tmp_name],$upfile))
{
echo "Congrats! File was uploaded!";
}
else
{
echo "File was not uploaded. There was an error.";
}
echo "Lets see some info about the file!";
print_r($_FILES);
echo "</pre>";
?>
Pretty cool huh? Figure 14.4 shows the results if you uploaded a le called
test.txt.
Not too shabby. The program tries to move the le and then tells the user if the
uploading was successful. Notice the code at the end of the document:
echo "Lets see some info about the file!";
print_r($_FILES);
echo "</pre>";
This function, print_r(), writes out the contents of an array in human readable terms. As you can see in Figure 14.4, this function prints the array as follows:
[file] => Array
(
[name] => test.txt
[type] => text/plain
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[tmp_name] => C:\PHP\uploadtemp\phpC9.tmp

[error] => 0
[size] => 4
)
Figure 14.4
Results of uploading through phpft14-01.php.
This explains everything there is to know about the le. Notice the use of the
<pre></pre> tag. This tag makes the new lines in the documents HTML code
appear as new lines on the web browser screen, rather than simply disappearing.
Without it, the program would look like Figure 14.5. Looks a lot harder to read,
huh?
Loading Files
Opening and loading les are very common programming operations, and
fortunately they are not difcult.
Loading Files
Figure 14.5
Removing the <pre> tag.
Opening a File
Opening a le requires the use of the fopen() function, which gives you access to
any le and its contents. Lets look at its declaration:
fopen($filename, $mode)
Both parameters are strings. Obviously $filename is intuitive; however, $mode is a

little bit more complex. Lets take a look and let me explain what that parameter
means.
When you open a le, you can open it for several purposesthe most common
are reading and writing. You can also open a le for appending, which means that
you can add information only to the end of a le. Table 14.2 shows what the PHP
manual has to say about all the possible modes.
There arent too many modes. Yeah, there are two more modes, x and x+, which
look weird, but because they arent used much, I wont spend any time on them
in this chapter.
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Table 14.2 fopen() Modes

Mode
Description
This opens the file for reading only. The file pointer is put at the beginning of the file.
This opens the file for reading and writing. The file pointer is put at the beginning of the file.
This opens the file for writing only. The file pointer is put at the beginning of the file. If the
file does not exist, this attempts to create it.
This opens the file for reading and writing. The file pointer is put at the beginning of the file.
If the file does not exist, this attempts to create it.
This opens the file for writing only. The file pointer is put at the end of the file. If the file
does not exist, this attempts to create it.
This opens the file for reading and writing. The file pointer is put at the end of the file. If the
file does not exist, this attempts to create it.
r+
w
w+
a
a+
Only use the most limited of modes depending on your situation. If you need to
use a le because you need to read data from it, use the r mode. If you need to
create and write a le, use w. Even though you can use w+ to read or write to the
le, it is safer to use the mode that allows only what you need. Otherwise, you can
accidentally overwrite a le.
The fopen() function returns a handle to the le. A handle is essentially the same
as a variable, and it stores all the data inside the le. So, if you wanted to open a
le for reading, you could do it like this:
$file = fopen(file.txt, r);
All later operations are done upon the $le handle variable.
Closing a File
When you are done with a le inside your PHP program, close it. If you leave it
open, the script can take up more space and slow down the system. Use the
fclose() function to close the le. The declaration for this function is as follows:
fclose($handle);
Simply pass the variable that you retrieved from fopen() to fclose() to close the
le, and the le disappears! Loading and closing a le could be done as follows:
<?
$handle = fopen(file.txt,w);
Writing to Files
//Do file operations, all writing because of mode
fclose($handle);
?>
Writing to Files
Writing to les is almost as simple as loading and closing les. All you need is
another function: fwrite(). This naming scheme is getting pretty easy to gure
out, huh? Take a look at the fwrite() declaration:
fwrite($handle, $string)
With this function, you can write whatever string you want to a le. Note that we
are writing an ASCII le, which means that anything you write to the le is a
string, because it will be interpreted as a string when data is later read from the
document. fwrite() only works if the $handle was opened for write or append
access, as discussed earlier in this chapter.
So lets create a web page that lets the user append text to the bottom of a le and
close it. Lets start off with the HTML form we need to create:
<html>
<head>
<title>Append Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<form action="phpft14-02.php" method="POST" >
The text that you enter will be appended to the file phpft14-02.txt.
<p>Enter text to append: <textarea name="appendedtext"></textarea>
<br><input type="submit">
</form>
</body>
</html>
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Check out how this looks in Figure 14.6.
Figure 14.6
The phpft14-02.html appending form.
Now for the appending script, which, if working correctly, looks like Figure 14.7:
<?
$text = $_POST[appendedtext];
$filename="phpft14-02.txt";
$handle = fopen($filename, a);
//if there is a problem with opening file, echo out error
if (!$handle)
{
exit("Could not open file!");
}
Writing to Files
//If there is an error with writing, echo out an error
if (!fwrite($handle,stripslashes($text)))
{
exit("Could not write data!");
}
echo "Congratulations! Data appended!";
fclose($handle);
?>
Figure 14.7
The phpft14-02.php appending script.
Check out what happens to the text le. In this example, my original document
was C:\test.txt. Originally, before running the script, the le looked like the
one in Figure 14.8. But after running the script, look at test.txt now, in
Figure 14.9!
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Figure 14.8
The original test.txt file.
Figure 14.9
The new and appended test.txt file.
Writing to Files
Cool, huh? But whats up with that slash in Let\s? Characters that require
escape sequences, such as the apostrophe, have a backslash before the character.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to x this. PHP includes a cool function:
stripslashes().
stripslashes($string)
This function removes all the backslashes from a string and returns the new
string. If we wanted to add this to our document, we would only need to change
one line. We would change our fwrite() line from this
if (!fwrite($handle,$text))
to this
if (!fwrite($handle,stripslashes($text)))
After doing so, you can see what the new test.txt le would look like in
Figure 14.10. Small changes make big differences, huh?
Figure 14.10
Using stripslashes().
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Reading in Files
Reading in les is almost the same as writing to lesjust the opposite. When we
were writing to les earlier, we passed a string as a parameter that contained the
data in the le. When we read in les, the reading function returns a string that
we can manipulate for our purposes.
fread()
So what is the reading function, then? If youve been paying attention, you can
probably guess the name: fread(). Take a look at the function declaration:
fread($handle, $lengthInBytes)
Both of these parameters are required. The rst parameter is the handle to the le
we retrieved by using fopen(). The second parameter is the number of bytes you
wish to retrieve. fread() only works for pages that have been opened for reading
access.
This sounds all well and good if you know the amount of data you need to
retrieve, but what if you dont? What if you want to retrieve the entire le?
Fortunately, PHP gives you a way to do this. PHPs lesize()function returns a
les size in bytes. Look at the declaration:
filesize($filename)
Pretty cool, huh? If you want to read in an entire le, you can do it as follows:
$contents = fread($handle, filesize($filename));
There are a couple other cool functions you should know about. One is fgets(),
which reads the le until the next carriage return, returning the current line. You
can call this inside a loop and display or act upon the entire contents of a le.
file()
Another cool function is le(), which takes the entire le into an array without
requiring an fopen() command! All you have to do is pass le() the lename, as
follows:
$entireFile = file("yourfile.txt");
This creates an array of each line of the le. As an alternative, you can use a
foreach loop and act upon each line of the le.
Reading in Files
After running this line of code, the $contents variable contains the entire contents of the $handle le. The contents are in string format. You can do all of your
operations upon the strings, as I explain in Chapter 8.
So lets use all of this in a script. You know by now how to make the HTML
document, but feel free to take a look at phpft14-03.html to see how the HTML
looks. The page we made looks like the one in Figure 14.11.
Figure 14.11
The phpft14-03.html reading form.
Now look at the PHP code that makes the reading happen:
<?
$filename = "c:\\test.txt";//$_POST[file];
$handle = fopen($filename, r);
//if there is a problem with opening file, echo out error
if (!$handle)
239
240
Chapter 14
Working with Files
{
exit("Could not open file!");
}
$contents = fread($handle,filesize($filename));
//If there is an error with writing, echo out an error
if (!$contents)
{
exit("Could not read data!");
}
echo "The contents of your file $filename follow.<p>";
echo $contents;
fclose($handle);
?>
The main thing is the fread() line:

$contents = fread($handle,filesize($filename));
Here, we pass the $handle and the lesize of the le to the fread() function. We
put the result of this operation into the $contents variable. After this we check to
see if $contents is valid by running the following if test:
if (!$contents)
{
exit("Could not read data!");
}
is invalid if it is blank, so we can check to see if it is valid by doing the

above test. If the le is blank, the program exits. Cool, huh? You can do whatever
you like with the le, maybe remove all of the new lines, or search for specic
substrings, or whatever you feel like!
$contents

There are only a few more functions that I want to go over before nishing off
this chapter. These three functions are commonly used in le situations, both on
a computer and on a web site. They are simple to use, and all return a Boolean
value. If the function is successful, the function returns true; if it is false, the
function returns false.
copy
The rst function copies:
copy($source_filename, $destination_filename)
When using the copy function, the program knows already that the source le
needs to be opened for reading and the destination le needs to be open for
writing. Because of this, the function does not require that you pass in a handle of
a le, but just the lename. The function actually sends the copy and rename
commands to the operating system, delegating the work from the PHP
programsaves you some work.
rename
The second function renames:
rename($old_filename, $new_filename);
One cool thing to know about rename is that you can use it to move a le across
directories, as well. By renaming the le to have a different path, you can move
the le. For example, if the old lename is C:\test.txt and the new lename is
D:\text\test.txt, you move the le from the C:\ directory to D:\text. Pretty
nifty, huh?
unlink
The last function deletes les. I bet you think you know what the function name is.
unlink($filename)
Weird, huh? PHP sometimes gives functions annoying names, so even though
most people would expect this function to be delete(), it is instead entitled
unlink().
These functions are all simple to use, and all return a Boolean value. If the
function is successful, the function returns true, and if it is false, the function
returns false.
241
242
Chapter 14
Working with Files
Summary
Thats it. We are done. Nothing left to teach. Well, except for the rest of PHP. But
this book gave you a great introduction into the topic. You can now design your
own dynamic web site. You can have it interact with les, interact with strings
whatever you want it to do.
You started with a quick primer on HTML to help refresh your memory. You
then learned how to make forms and how to use the variables within those forms.
You then learned about constants, operators, and expressions, which you used
throughout the book. You took a brief respite to learn about the style that is
necessary to develop when programming. After that, in Part II you learned about
control structures and loops. You even learned about dealing with strings,
functions, and the hated arrays. In Part III you learned about really advanced
forms, cookies, sessions, and how to work with les. After all this learning, you
can now design your own dynamic site and make it do whatever you want!
PHP is the future of web sites. It interfaces with databases, which enables you to
store data in easily accessible formats. A great next step is to learn how to use
databases (mySQL is my favorite) and see how to interface them with PHP.
Everyone loves a well-designed database.
Other than that, Ive exhausted what this book can teach you. If you have
any questions, you can always email me at maneesh@maneeshsethi.com. You
can visit my web site at www.maneeshsethi.com. You can visit my blog at www.
lazymotivation.com. You can even visit my forums and talk to other people who
have questions and answers about PHP at www.maneeshsethi.com/forum.
Please email me. I love to hear from readers, and I take all your comments to
heart. If you are interested in reading my other works, check out my blog, and see
Game Programming for Teens, Second Edition; Web Design for Teens; and my
soon-to-be-published How to Succeed as a Lazy Student. You can nd information about all these books at www.maneeshsethi.com.
Thank you so much for paying attention throughout this entire book. Good luck
with your web sites! Send me updates of your web pages, and if they are really
good, I might display them directly on www.maneeshsethi.com!
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didnt exist.
And like that . . . hes gone. Maneesh, signing out.
appendix a
Function List
This appendix lists all of the descriptions and declarations of the functions in this
book. The declaration is described as follows:
returnType FunctionName(varType variable1, varType variable2, . . .)
All of the functions follow this pattern. If the function returns nothing, the return
type is void. If the parameter is optional, brackets are placed around the
parameter.
Table A.1 Functions

Name
Description
Code
basename()
Returns the filename component

of a filename string.
Copies the contents of one file
to another.
string basename(string
$fullString)
bool copy(string
$source_lename, string
$destination_lename)
Takes in a constant name and

a constant value and defines
the constant in the program.
void dene(string
$constantName, int
constantValue);
copy()
dene()
continued
243
244
Appendix A
Table A.1 continued

Name
Description
Code
echo
Although this is not a function

(it is a language construct), it
acts as one. Outputs the specified
text or variable to the page.
Although this is not a function
(it is a language construct), it
acts as one. Causes the PHP page
to immediately halt script execution.
No following PHP commands
are executed on the page.
Closes a file.
void echo (string $1, . . .)
exit
fclose()
lesize()
fopen()
fread()
fwrite()
gettype()
header()
isset()
mail()
move_
uploaded_le()
nl2br()
rename()
void exit (string/int

$status);
void fclose(resource
$handle);
Returns the size of a file in bytes.
int lesize(string
$lename);
Opens a file and returns a handle to it. resource fopen(string
$lename, string $mode)
Returns a string that contains
string fread(resource
all the contents inside the chosen file. $handle, int $sizeInBytes);
Writes a string to an already
bool fwrite(resource
opened file.
$handle, string $text);
Returns the type of the inputted
string gettype(anytype
variable.
$variable);
Allows you to modify some section
void header(string
$newLocation);
of the document header. Using
the Location: attribute changes
the web pages URL.
bool isset(anytype
Confirms whether a variable has
$variable);
been created. Returns true if it
already exists and false if not.
Lets your web server send an
bool mail(string $to, string
email message.
$subject, string $message,
[string $additionalheaders],
[string $additionalparameters])
bool move_uploaded_le
Moves a file from its temporary
(string $source, string
location to its final destination
$destination);
on your server.
string nl2br(string $text);
Takes in a string as a parameter and
converts the new lines into <br />
tags. Allows proper display of strings
in the web browser.
Renames a file.
bool rename(string
$old_lename, string
$new_lename);
Appendix A
Table A.1 concluded

Name
session_
name()
Description
Allows you to assign a name to

your session. Includes a string
parameter to change the
name. If you leave the
parameter blank, the current
sessions name is returned.
session_ start() Initiates or continues using a session.
This function must be placed before
any other echoed HTML or text.
setcookie()
Sets a cookie on the web server,
which lets you store user data.
stripslashes()
strval()
time()
unlink()
unset()
Code
string session_name
([string $name]);
void session_start(void);
bool setcookie(string,
$name, [string $value, int
$expire, string $path, string
$domain, bool $secure])
Returns a string with all
string stripslashes(string
backslashes removed.
$orginalString);
Takes in a non-string as a parameter
string strval(int
and returns the input as a string value. $nonstring);
Returns the number of seconds since
int time(void);
the epoch (returns the current time).
Deletes a file.
bool unlink(string
$lename)
Deletes an element of an array
void unset(anytype
or an entire array, depending on
$elementOrArray);
what variable you pass.
245
appendix b
Online Resources
Check out some other web sites to learn a little more about PHP once you are
done with this book. Here are some recommendations:
n
www.php.net This
is the ofcial PHP web site. You can read the

documentation or see a full and complete function list. The tutorial is
excellent.
php.resourceindex.com This
is a great resource for working PHP scripts

and tutorials. You can nd a lot of cool tips and hacks.
www.courseptr.com This
www.maneeshsethi.com This
site offers books that can take your PHP and

SQL/MySQL studies to a higher level.
is my web site and Ive included some

information for this book. Go to www.maneeshsethi.com/forum to interact
with other readers.
247
appendix c
Whats on the CD
On this books CD, you nd all of the source code for all of the chapters. In
addition, it offers the Nvu HTML editor and a few cool PHP editors. The CD is
laid out like this:
Source/
Chapter 01/
Chapter 02/
...
Chapter 14
Programs/
Extra Programs/
Just navigate to the directory of your choice to install the software. The Programs
directory contains Apache and PHP for installation on your machine. The Extra
Programs directory holds the editors.
249
INDEX
Symbols
{ } (curly braces), 88, 90
\r (carriage return), 131
$ (dollar sign), 61
. (dot operator), 75, 83, 9293
= (equal) operator, 90
/ (forward slash), 27
> (greater than), 61, 90
>= (greater than or equal to) operator, 90
\t (horizontal tab), 131
< (less than), 61, 90
<= (less than or equal to) operator, 90
\n (line feed), 131
; (semicolon), 12, 6465
(single quotation marks), 75
_ (underscore), 66, 100
A
A Guide to MySQL (Pratt), 211
A Guide to SQL (Last and Pratt), 211
a+ mode, fopen() function, 232
a mode, fopen() function, 232
action attribute
advanced forms, 171172
<form> tag, 44, 52
<alt> tag, 37
Apache services monitor, PHP installation, 6
apostrophes, 125
appending les, 231
arithmetic operators, 8385
array data type, 60
arrays
array() function, 152
$arrayname value, 162
creation, 151152
dened, 7172
element creation, 153
for loop and, 157158
keys in, 151, 154157
numeric indices for, 157
old values, removing, 158160
reference items, 152153
return values, 152
ASCII les, 25
assignment operator, 91
B
<b> tag, 33
basename() function, 243
binary operators, 81
Binary option, PHP installation, 4
blank sentences in forms, 58
<body> tag, 28
bolded text, 33
boolean data type, 60
<br> tag, 37, 124
branching structures, control
structures, 103104
break statements, 113, 120
C
C++, comment use, 101
C method, comment use, 101
capitalization
constant naming rules, 78
style considerations, 99100
variable naming rules, 66
carriage return (\r), 131
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), 33
251
252
Index
case sensitivity
constants, 78
variable naming rules, 66
CD
contents, 249
PHP installation, 4
closing les, 232233
closing tag, 27
coded characters, password elds, 170171
colors, font, 3536
comments
C method, 101
C++ method, 101
organization techniques, 100102
Perl method, 101
text areas, 47
when to use, 101
comparison operators, 90
conditional statements, 87, 175
conditions, calling functions depending
on, 146150
conf directory, PHP installation, 910
consistency, style considerations, 99
constants
case-sensitivity, 78
naming rules, 79
variables versus, 7778
$contents variable, le() function, 239
continue statement, loops and, 120
control structures
branching structures, 103104
break statements, 113
else statements, 107109
elseif statements, 109111
if statements, 104107
loops
for, 116119
break statement and, 120
continue statement and, 120
do. . .while, 119120
while, 114116
switch statements, 111113
$_COOKIE array, 75
cookies
$cookievalue variable, 188
counter creation exercise, 219221
creation, 182185
dened, 181
exit() function, 188
no value problems, 185
not recognizable problems, 185
placing on Web site, 186190
sessions versus, 195196

setcookie() function, 182185, 188
copy() function, 241, 243
copying les, 241
counter creation, sessions, 208211
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), 33
curly braces ({ }), 88
D
data types, 6061, 69
declaration, functions, 139
decrementing operators, 9192
dene() function, 78, 243
delete() function, 242
deleting les, 241242
denial-of-service (DoS) attack, 225
$destination string, 228
dirname() function, 216
DOCTYPE declaration, 25
dollar sign ($), 61
domain name, PHP installation, 6
$domain parameter, setcookie()
function, 184185
DoS (denial-of-service) attack, 225
dot operator (.), 75, 83, 9293
double data type, 61
double-quoted syntax, string creation, 131132
do. . .while loop, 119120
E
echo command, 83, 244
editors
HTML, 3940
Notepad, 3941
email commands
document design, 178
from option, 177
headers section, 179
mail() function, 176177, 179
to address, 176
empty() function, 175
enctype value, les, 225
$_ENV array, 75
equal (=) operator, 90
errors
PHP installation, 15
session, 203205
escape sequence, 126
Index
exit() function, 188, 244
$expire parameter, setcookie() function, 182183
expressions, 9394
F
fclose() function, 232233, 244
fgets() function, 238
le() function, 239240
les
allowing uploads, 223
appending, 231
$basename string, 228
closing, 232233
copying, 241
deleting, 241242
enctype value, 225
$lename string, 228
$_FILES array, 226227
form-data, 225
handles, 232
loading, 230
MAX_FILE_SIZE attribute, 225
move_uploaded_le() function, 226, 228
opening, 231232
reading in, 237241
renaming, 241
sizes, 238
unlinking, 241242
writing to, 233236
$_FILES array, 75
lesize() function, 238, 244
oat data type, 6061, 69
fonts, 3537
fopen() function, 231232, 244
for each loop, 161166
for loop
arrays and, 157158
how to use, 116119
form page design, starting sessions, 198
<form> tag, 4244
form-data, les, 225
forms
action attribute, 171172
after submission, 58
blank sentences, 58
conditional statements, 175
discussed, 42
email commands
document design, 178
from option, 177
headers section, 179
mail() function, 176177, 179

to address, 176
eld names, 46
GET, 7071
hidden elds, 171
password elds, 170171
with PHP tags, 57
POST, 7071
radio buttons, 167169
reset button, 51
submit button, 4850
text areas, 44, 47
textboxes, 4446
forward slash (/), 27
fread() function, 237238, 240, 244
from option, email commands, 177
functions
array(), 152
basename(), 243
condition dependent, 146150
copy(), 241, 243
declaration, 139
dene(), 78, 243
dened, 67, 135
delete(), 242
$destination string, 228
dirname(), 216
empty(), 175
exit(), 188, 244
fclose(), 232233, 244
fgets(), 238
le(), 239240
lesize(), 238, 244
fopen(), 231232, 244
fread(), 237238, 240, 244
function code, 138
fwrite(), 233, 244
gettype(), 80, 244
get_type, 67
header(), 216, 244
isset(), 188, 244
library les for, 145146
mail(), 176177, 179, 244
modular program, 135
move_uploaded_le(), 226, 228, 244
n12br(), 124, 127, 138, 244
parameter lists, 138139
parameters, 6768
print_r(), 228
rename(), 241, 244
return values, 68, 139143
rtrim(), 216
running counter program, 135137
253
254
Index
functions (continued)
session_name(), 245
session_start(), 196197, 245
setcookie(), 182185, 188, 245
soundex(), 134
string, 132134
stripslashes(), 236, 245
strval(), 132, 134, 245
substr(), 134
time(), 183, 245
unlink(), 242, 245
unset(), 158160, 188, 245
variable scope, 146
fwrite() function, 233, 244
G
$_GET array, 75
GET form, 7071
GET method, 8889, 171
gettype() function, 80, 244
get_type() function, 67
$GLOBALS array, 75
greater than (>), 61, 90
greater than or equal to (>=), 90
A Guide to MySQL (Pratt), 211
A Guide to SQL (Last and Pratt), 211
H
handles, le, 232
<head> tag, 3032
header() function, 216, 244
headers section, email commands, 179
heading levels, 3032
hexadecimal code, 3637
hidden elds, advanced forms, 171
<hnumber> tag, 31
horizontal tab (\t), 131
htdocs directory, 12
HTML editors, 3940
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
<alt> tag, 37
ASCII les, 25
<b> tag, 33
<body> tag, 28
<br> tag, 37
DOCTYPE declaration, 25
<form> tag, 4244
forms
discussed, 42
eld names, 46
reset button, 51
submit button, 4850
text areas, 44, 47
textboxes, 4446
<head> tag, 3032
<hnumber> tag, 31
.htm extension, 24
.html extension, 24
<html> tag, 2629
http.conf le, 24
<img> tag, 37
<input> tag, 44
<p> tag, 2829
<span> tag, 3536
structure of, 2324
tags, dened, 25
template, 4042
<textarea> tag, 47
<title> tag, 27
<html> tag, 2629
HTTP server link, web server installation, 3
http.conf le, 24
Hypertext Markup Language. See HTML
I
<i> tag, 33
if statements, 87, 104107
images, text, 37
<img> tag, 37
incrementing operators, 9192
<input> tag, 44
installing PHP
from CD, 4
on Macs, 1921
on Windows
Apache download, 34
Apache services monitor, 6
Binary option, 4
conf directory, opening, 910
domain name, 6
errors, 15
HTTP server link, 3
PHP download page, 8
Server Information screen, 45
testing, 78, 1115
Typical Installation method, 6
web server installation, 27
zipped les, 9
integer data type, 60
integers, converting to strings, 132134
isset() function, 188, 244
italicized text, 33
Index
keys, in arrays, 151, 154157
language construct, 6364

Last, Mary Z. (A Guide to SQL), 211
less than character (<), 61, 90
less than or equal to (<=) operator, 90
letters, variable naming rules, 66
library les, for functions, 145146
line feed (\n), 131
loading les, 230
Location attribute, header() function, 216
logical operators, 9091
log-in page development, sessions, 211219
loops
do. . .while, 119120
for, 116119, 157158
foreach, 161166
while, 114116
object data type, 60

old values in arrays, removing, 158160
online resources, 247
opening les, 231232
opening tag, 27
operators
arithmetic, 8385
assignment, 91
binary, 81
classes, 80
comparison, 90
conditional statements, 87
decrementing, 9192
dened, 79
incrementing, 9192
logical, 9091
modulus, 84
negative, 84
string dot, 9293
ternary, 8183
unary, 81
organization. See style
machine code, 1
Macs, PHP installation, 1921
mail() function, 176177, 179, 244
MAX_FILE_SIZE attribute, 225
method attribute, /form/ tag, 44
methods
GET, 8889, 171
POST, 8889, 171
modular program functions, 135
modulus operator, 84
move_uploaded_le() function, 226, 228, 244
<p> (paragraph) tag, 2829

parameter list, functions, 138139
parameters
function, 6768
return values versus, 139
password and username, log-in page
development, 213216
password elds, advanced forms, 170171
$path parameter, setcookie() function, 184
Perl method, comment use, 101
PHP installation. See installing PHP
PHP tags, 5456
PHP Web site, 247
phpinfo.php le, 1213
placeholders, 55
$_POST array, 75
POST form, 7071
POST method, 8889, 171
Pratt, Philip J.
A Guide to MySQL, 211
A Guide to SQL, 211
predened variables, 7275
print_r() function, 228
program ow
branching structures, 103104
break statements, 113
N
$name parameter, setcookie() function, 182
naming rules
for constants, 79
for variables, 6566
n12br() function, 124, 127, 138, 244
negative operator, 84
nesting tags, 2728
new lines, single quoted strings, 122124
Notepad editor, 3941
NULL data type, 60
numbers, variable naming rules, 66
numeric indices, for arrays, 157
255
256
Index
program ow (continued)
if statements, 104107
loops
do. . .while, 119120
for, 116119
while, 114116
R
r+ mode, fopen() function, 232
r mode, fopen() function, 232
radio buttons, 167169
reading in les, 237241
reference items, arrays, 152153
rename() function, 241, 244
renaming les, 241
$_REQUEST array, 75
reset button, forms, 51
resource data type, 60
resources, web sites as, 247
return values
arrays, 152
functions, 68
parameters versus, 139
rtrim() function, 216
running counter program, function use, 135137
S
script resources, 247
$secure parameter, setcookie() function, 185
semicolon (;), 12, 6465
$_SERVER array, 75
Server Information screen, PHP installation, 45
$_SESSION array, 75
sessions
cookies versus, 195196
dened, 195
errors, 203205
log-in page development, 211219
same name variable problems, 202
session names, 205208, 245
session_start() function, 196197, 245
starting
basic page development, 198202
form page design, 198
how to, 197
variable assignment, 204205
Web page counter creation, 208211
setcookie() function, 182185, 188, 245

single quotation marks (), 75
single-quoted syntax, string creation, 122129
sizes, le, 238
soundex() function, 134
<span> tag, 3536
starting sessions
basic page development, 198202
form page design, 198
how to, 197
statements
break, 113
continue, 120
else, 107109
elseif, 109111
if, 87, 104107
switch, 111113
string data type, 6061
string dot operator, 9293
strings
dened, 121
double-quoted syntax, 131132
functions, 132134
integer conversion, 132134
single-quoted syntax, 122129
soundex() function, 134
strval() function, 132, 134
substr() function, 134
stripslashes() function, 236, 245
strval() function, 132, 134, 245
style
capitalization, 99100
comments, 100102
consistency in, 99
guidelines, 99
organization considerations, 9597
subdomains, 184
submit button, forms, 4850
substr() function, 134
switch tests, 90
T
tags, HTML
<alt>, 37
<b>, 33
<body>, 28
<br>, 37, 124
closing, 27
<form>, 4243
<head>, 3032
<hnumber>, 31
Index
<html>, 2629
HTML structure, 25
<i>, 33
<img>, 37
<input>, 44
nesting, 2728
opening, 27
<p>, 2829
<span>, 3536
tag attribute, 35
<textarea>, 47
text-formatting, 3337
<title>, 28
<u>, 33
tags, PHP, 5456
templates, HTML, 4042
ternary operators, 8183
testing, PHP installation, 78, 1115
text
bolded, 33
fonts, 3537
italicized, 33
underlined, 33
text areas, HTML forms, 44, 47
text images, 37
<textarea> tag, 47
textboxes, HTML forms, 4446
text-formatting tags, 3337
time() function, 183, 245
<title> tag, 28
to address, email commands, 176
tutorial resources, 247
Typical Installation method, PHP installation, 6
U
<u> tag, 33
unary operators, 81
underlined text, 33
underscore (_), 66, 100
unlink() function, 242, 245
unlinking les, 241242
unset() function, 158160, 188, 245
uploads, les, 223
username and password, log-in page
development, 213216
V
$value parameter, setcookie() function, 182
variable assignment, sessions, 204205
variable scope, 146

variables
array data type, 60
arrays, 7172, 75
boolean data type, 60
constants versus, 7778
creating, 6163
data types, 6061
dened, 59
double data type, 61
oat data type, 6061, 69
integer data type, 60
language construct, 6364
naming guidelines, 6566
NULL data type, 60
object data type, 60
predened, 7275
resource data type, 60
string data type, 6061
W
w+ mode, fopen() function, 232
w mode, fopen() function, 232
Web Design For Teens, 39
web sites, as resource, 247
What You See Is What You Get
(WYSIWYG) text editor, 40
while loop, 114116
white space, 97
Windows, PHP installation
Apache download, 34
Apache services monitor, 6
Binary option, 4
conf directory, opening, 910
domain name, 6
errors, 15
HTTP server link, 3
PHP download page, 8
Server Information screen, 45
testing, 78, 1115
Typical Installation method, 6
zipped les, 9
writing to les, 233236
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)
text editor, 40
Z
zipped les, PHP installation, 9
257

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PHP For Teens

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PHP for

2006 Thomson Course Technology, a division of Thomson Learning

Publisher and General Manager,

Thomson Course Technology PTR,

To the QuadLoro 107

About the Author

A Quick HTML Primer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Building Your First PHP Program: Setting Up the HTML. . 39

Writing the PHP in Your First Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

The Style Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Constants, Expressions, and Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Program Flow: Control Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Advanced Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Working with Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Function List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Online Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Whats on the CD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Who This Book Is For

How This Book Is Organized

Installing PHP on Windows

Installing the Web Server

Installing PHP on Windows

2. Click the HTTP server link at the top-left column.

4. Download Win32 Binary (MSI Installer).

5. Click the Binary option to bring up a download window.

Installing PHP on Windows

8. Fill in some sample values (for example, somenet.com and www.somenet.com)

Installing PHP on Windows

Installing PHP on Windows

4. Click the link and download the le.

8. Scroll to the bottom of the httpd.conf le and add these lines:

Installing PHP on Windows

Installing PHP on Windows

5. Save the le to the C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs

Is the extension of the PHP le .php?

Did you edit the httpd.conf le to add these lines?

LoadModule php5_module "c:/php/php5apache2.dll"

Did you type localhost/phpinfo.php in your address bar?

Does the le exist?

Is the le in your htdocs directory?

Did you install the Apache directory correctly?

Can you access non-PHP les through your web server?

Installing PHP on Windows

Installing PHP on Windows

Installing PHP on Macs

Installing PHP on Macs

3. Type the following to set your compiler to do optimization:

5. Type make and make install.

If you get an error message telling you that libmodphp4.a is outdated, go to

Installing PHP on Macs

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A Quick HTML Primer

The .htm or .html extension

The ASCII format

The common tags

.htm or .html Extension

A Quick HTML Primer

A Quick HTML Primer

weird things happen in your document.

A Quick HTML Primer

A Quick HTML Primer

Bolding is done with <b></b>.

Italicizing is done with <i></i>.